Appalachian Christmas
When I was 7, I took to our farm to find a Christmas tree. Too poor to buy our own from the gas station in town, I figured the next best option was one right off our own farm. Cedars grew wild in the Greenbrier Valley, dotting the edges of brush in the margins of our fields. I picked one, that, looking up with my 7-year-old eyes, was what I thought to be about 6 feet tall. Every day after school, I would take to the fields, walking past the ponds and cattle lots that hugged our farm house and venture into the great beyond of the vastness of our 1,250 acre farm. In the corner of a sink hole and a small hill, my hand-picked cedar tree stood tall and strong, waiting for its final purpose: our Christmas tree. I fashioned my Swiss Army Knife from my pocket. My paw-paw had given me the contraption the prior Christmas and it had become my survival essential tool. It would protect me from coyotes, bears, bobcats, and those evil chupacabras and lizard huma...