Courtesy Photo
Pictured with her husband, Ed, award-winning cultural enthusiast Betty McDaniel is the brains behind the Gathering on Appalachian Life, which will celebrate its second year on Feb. 27.

I wrote last year about how local cultural enthusiast Betty McDaniel had a visit from the Ghosts of Appalachia Past, Present and Yet To Be. [cointent_lockedcontent]After those visions, Betty began to startle everyone by bringing to fruition the first ever “Gathering On Appalachian Life.” What an incredible success that gathering was! People have not stopped talking about the interest that was made manifest at the different events.

Please mark your calendars now for the second Gathering on Appalachian Life, a festival of activities to be held Feb. 27 at the Hagood Community Center — also known as the Pickens Senior Center. Registration will be held at 8:30 a.m., and the first session will begin at 9 a.m.

Betty began to react to her visions last year by contacting major organizations that might be interested in sponsoring such a gathering. Those buying into her visions were such groups as the Pickens County Historical Society, Pickens Revitalization Association, the Hagood Mill Historic Site and Folklife Center, Birchwood Center for Arts and Folklife, Preserving Our Southern Appalachian Music Inc. (POSAM) and many, many more.

The things Betty has been able to accomplish after the ghosts’ visits are as remarkable as the transformations that took place after those ancient ghosts visited old Ebenezer Scrooge. Many facets of our Appalachian past will be featured in this 2016 gathering. There will be a general session and four break-out sessions.

The general session will feature three genuine cultural icons from around Pickens.

Wayne Kelley is senior vice president of the Pickens County Historical Society and co-chairman for the Consortium of Upcountry South Carolina History. Wayne will speak about the importance of history that tells us who we are.

Dennis Chastain is a fantastic outdoor writer, historian and naturalist. He has

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Local outdoor writer, historian and naturalist Dennis Chastain will return to the Gathering on Appalachian Life to give a presentation on ancient Cherokee life in the area.

researched Native American history for decades and will speak on ancient Cherokee life here where we now live.

Les McCall is director of the Agricultural Museum of South Carolina, and who better to speak about Appalachian farming as a way of life?

Each of the four sessions will include many opportunities from which the people in attendance at the gathering might choose. Such events are: gospel/shape note singing, planting in the mountains, fair isle knitting, language of Appalachia, Pickens to Pumpkintown, Appalachian hearthside cooking, bee keeping, blacksmithing, hewing logs, moonshining, Appalachian genealogy, Appalachian dance, folk music and many different tours.

While the Hagood Center will serve as the base for activities, other venues such as Hagood Mill, the historical room of the Easley Library and Dale Harward’s barn for beekeeping will be used as well.

Appalachian Music

If you like Appalachian music, you will encounter a real treat. Pickens’ own performing Young Appalachian Musicians, known as the Sweet Potato Pie Kids, are fabulous! They will perform from 8:30-9:05 a.m. at the Hagood Center before the general session.

I absolutely love the Heartstrings, who not only give history of gospel music, but allow singalongs as Lib Porter and Joy Evans, a fiddle instructor for Young Appalachian Musiicians, sing old favorites from Appalachia. Steve MaGaha will lead a session on Appalachian folk music. Listen, folks. Steve is a Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award Winner, the highest South Carolina Heritage Award that can be achieved. There will be singalongs at this Appalachian gathering!

When the Ghost of Appalachia Present had Betty McDaniel touch his robe, they flew to Nashville, Tenn., and the Opryland Hotel. There, Pickens County’s own Hot Foot Cloggers of Six Mile were performing to the delight, screeches, whistling and clapping of the large, uninhibited auditorium crowd. Betty asked the ghost, “Why can’t we do something like that at a gathering in Pickens?”

Courtesy Photo
Author Dr. Thomas Cloer Jr. speaks during the first Gathering on Appalachian Life last year in Pickens.

The ghost replied without making eye contact, “Oh my dear! All the good intentions in the world don’t add up to one single little inviting act.” So Betty acted on the vision, and look out! What kind of an Appalachian gathering would it be without a little dancing? Laken Pilgrim, a clogger since primary school and a Hot Foot clogger from Six Mile, a champion clogger in college and a wonderful instructor, will demonstrate clogging and moves for old Appalachian square dancing. I have been under his tutelage, and highly recommend him. Look for a dance floor full of hot feet.

Moonshining, Cooking, and Other Aspects of Appalachian Heritage

Because of the isolation of much of Appalachia, moonshining has always been associated with its steep ridges, deep hollows and cold, pristine mountain water. Our upper Pickens County offered ideal conditions. At the Appalachian gathering, you can see a real moonshine still and see exactly how moonshine was made in this region. You can also hear from a retired (reformed?) moonshiner.

All Appalachian gatherings must include food. Lunch served the day of the gathering at the Hagood Community Center, Feb. 27, will be an old Appalachian staple — chicken pot pie, greens, apple crisp and drink.. There will also be a demonstration by Carol Bozarth on how to make coffee Appalachian style. First, one must roast the coffee over the open fire before grinding and boiling. Yum! Yum!

Yours truly is a person who really believes in “Inside the Skull” research. Since all my formative language years were spent in sawmill villages in the rough mountains of Northernmost Georgia, Western North Carolina and the moonshine capital of Appalachia, a place called Stinking Creek, Tenn., I will speak to home-rooted Southern Appalachian language heard and spoken daily. I will also tell my favorite haint tale, “How the Ol’ Hoot Owls Come to Shootin’ Creek,” with my wife, Elaine, adding sound effects on the autoharp. The haint tale will be full of home-rooted Southern Appalachian mountain language; gleaned from personal “Inside the Skull” research.

There will also be guided tours to places like the old Pickens Presbyterian Church, a most interesting church where the guide will take you far back into the history of the old Pickens District. You will sit in the original pews facing the original pulpit on a hill overlooking the Keowee River. There will be a tour available for those who would like to visit the Pickens County Art and History Museum that focuses on the history of this place “where the mountains begin.” I believe you will be as dazzled as I was by the museum’s comprehensive displays and artifacts.

Conclusion

Wow! I am sorry that Betty McDaniel had such a tumultuous night with the ghosts. But just like in “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, all of us in this place — like those around Ebenezer Scrooge in London — will benefit from the ghosts’ visits to the bucolic farm house of Ed and Betty McDaniel. After the visits to Ebenezer Scrooge, many families were affected for years to come. Bob Cratchit, his family, and especially Tiny Tim with his medical costs, weren’t the only ones affected. There was his nephew, Fred, and all the less-fortunate people, from Christmas 1843 until now, who have been assisted because of the ghosts’ visits, and how that changed the perception of one person.

In a similar manner, the ghosts that visited the historic old McDaniel home place just before Christmas in 2014 will forever affect Pickens County. There will be a greater sense of pride, a larger inheritance to leave those who come after us and a much better sense of place. Just as Scrooge said after he had unexpectedly showed up at the Christmas party of Fred, his nephew, “Wonderful party! Wonderful games! Wonderful unanimity.”

See you at The Hagood Community Center on Saturday, Feb. The cost will be $20. The Appalachian lunch will be $5. This is an unbelievable bargain considering the many possibilities for so many different interactive workshops. If you need a registration form or more information, you can google Gathering on Appalachian Life registration form for Feb 27, 2016. Please join us! You’ll be glad you did.

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