Medusa and Terry thank you for your stories. I hope they, and the documentary, have shed some light and I hope that those who are in positions to do something will act, and soon. I remember a few years ago going on vacation to the Skyline Drive in Virginia. We passed through West Virginia and saw much poverty along the way. You could actually see daylight through a few of the houses. We stopped at a Mc Donald's and a man sat there eating crackers that were given to him for free, along with little packets of ketchup that are given out with hamburgers that he carefully spread over the crackers. From his conversation with the workers you could tell that he was a "regular" and this was an example of how he was able to eat. I was fascinated with how people could exist with so little. A few years ago I also caught another documentary on life in Appalachia and it centered around one family. I believe it was on PBS although I could be wrong but it was excellent and I can still remember the family vividly in my mind. They were good people, just not able to rise above the circumstances of their birth.

I found a writer (Sharyn McCrumb) a few years ago who writes about life in Appalachia. She lives and writes in the Blue Ridge mountains less than 100 miles from where her family settled in 1790 in the Smoky Mountains. The first book I read by her was The Rosewood Casket and I think I have read all of her books by now. Her books, though fiction, will take you to a place that you have never gone and you will be hooked from the start (at least I was).