Homecoming to the Hills – Ladetra Morgan

Known to me as Deat, and loved by many. This woman lights up any room she enters y’all. She went back home to the mountains and has found her Happy. Enjoy her story….

My eyes had long-since adjusted to the neon lights placed strategically around the bar. “Drink local,” “West 6th,” and “Falls City” had beamed at me ferociously for almost 6 years while I bartended my way through college first at the University of Kentucky, and then at Georgetown once I had moved to Louisville. There was something eerie and disturbing to me though about the way tacky Christmas lights were now draped over these signs. The corners of my mouth hurt from fake-smiling at a regular, and I rolled my eyes immediately when I turned toward the well where a server saw me and had to choke back a laugh.

“You’re more sassy than usual tonight,” said the young server who was waiting for me to make the old fashioned she rang in. The muscle memory in my cut-all-to pieces hands muddled sugar and a splash of water in the rocks glass, while my brain simultaneously tried to remember where I had last put the bottle of Maker’s. “Who needs bitters when you have me bartending?” I joked.

I chuckled at my own joke as I saw that two new bar guests had walked in. I waltzed over to the two men and placed some beverage napkins in front of them, putting on a polite face for the strangers. “ How are y’all doing tonight?”

After a short back and forth about our varying accents, I learned that the two gentlemen were from Michigan and had come to Louisville for their family Christmas. They of course commented on my own accent, which was drastically different from the Louisvillian vernacular they were used to. I explained that I was from Leslie County in “way Eastern Kentucky.” I recounted that I had left to go to college and then met my ex-husband. I recounted my homesickness, and how I missed the Mountains everyday. The men were in their 40’s from what I could tell and I soon suspected that they had been drinking before they ever made their way in and sat at my bar top.

Halfway through their second round of beers, the men were being obnoxiously flirtatious. They insisted that I smile, encouraged me to pull my v-neck work shirt down a little further, and begged for me to say words that had a long “i” sound. The irony of the situation was that they slurred and stuttered over speaking while they were asking me to say words like night, light, and right. I administered my polite warning about not being obnoxious toward the end of their second beer. I proceeded to cash out our regulars who often times didn’t stay very late. Pretty soon it was just the three of us in the bar. It almost sounded like the beginning to a bad joke: “Two flatlanders walk into a bar where an Appalachian is bartending…”

The two men joked about how I “must be the most successful one in my family since I at least had a job,” then proceeded to tell me that I was “lucky I got out of the mountains before I got knocked up by a cousin.” I left their comments hanging on deaf ears as I printed out their checks and placed them in front of them, saying “I’m sorry guys but I think you all have had plenty to drink this Christmas Eve.” Intoxication is a strange thing. It gives people a false sense of entitlement and courage. Two grown men argued with me for ten minutes about how I “couldn’t cut them off” before they finally paid without leaving a tip.

I wasn’t even angry about the tip, as I was just happy to have them leaving. I grabbed a towel and started wiping off the bar, as I heard the slightly older gentleman mutter “dumb hillbilly” under his breath.

Then, like that, I blacked out.

I don’t remember turning the sharp corner on both heels, I don’t remember hulk-smashing the high top table chairs out of my way, and I definitely don’t remember the string of profanities I screamed as I chased two guys from Michigan out of the bar on Christmas Eve of 2016. These were all intricate details that were retold for 2-3 weeks each time a coworker came in for their shift. What I do remember is our 6’4,” 290 pound manager pressing me against the host stand as I came to myself cursing. I had been with the company for 6 years and he was by far the sweetest of our managers. I was lucky that we were close or else I may have lost my job that night.

Something in me changed that Christmas Eve. In a way, what that ignorant and rude man gave me, was the best Christmas gift I ever received: the anger and frustration I needed to fuel the fire to finally get me back home. I applied for various teaching positions that following Spring both within Louisville and outside Louisville. I grew more depressed with each passing week because there were no positions that made me feel any sort of passion.

One morning, as I woke up after an open-close 16 hour shift behind the bar my Mommy called. I almost didn’t answer the phone because I was so exhausted. For some reason, I picked up and started making a pot of coffee, so thick and black that it poured like motor oil into my “defend Appalachia” mug. She explained that a High School English position was available at Red Bird Christian School very close to my hometown of Hyden, KY. Something clicked within my head despite my worry at the prospect. I talked with her about my reservations, considering I was a heathen-divorced-single mother-bartender who probably had no place at a private Christian school. My reservations kind of flew out the window though when I heard her take a big breath and say, “it’s time to come home.”

Applying was scary because I had to confront the idea of not being worthy.

Interviewing was scary because I didn’t know what the principal wanted to hear.

Accepting the position was scary because I would be leaving behind what I had known for my entire adult life.

Moving home was scary because I soon found out that my ex-husband would fight me every step of the way, to appease his own parents and try to keep my sons in the Jefferson County School District.

This was almost enough to make me give up, because the only thing in the world that mattered more to me than my homesickness was being a good mother to my sons. They were the entire reason I wanted to move back to Eastern Kentucky so badly. I knew that my sons deserved the kind of upbringing that can only come from Sunday dinners at Mamaw’s, breaking beans on Papaw’s porch, riding the ridge on the strip-job, and knowing everyone in your community on a personal level.

The day the judge’s decision came through, I felt like I could finally breathe. The boys would attend school with me, and see their Dad and his parents almost every weekend. I had been teaching at Red Bird and the boys’ had been attending school with me but it wasn’t until that last loose end was all tied away that I finally felt totally at home. I just started my second year of teaching at Red Bird, and every morning I could still go outside and kiss the ground. For the first time in awhile my bills are usually paid on time. My little boys get to enjoy the stillness of growing up in the shadow of these hills, and I am witness to the humility I want them to have growing in their bones as a result.

I worked so hard to attend the University of Kentucky as a Robinson Scholar. I clawed and climbed my way through so many obstacles to leave this place. I thought the most exciting day of my life would be leaving home and moving to Lexington. Little did I know, it would be much harder to come back home than to leave it. The journey I have undergone over the course of the last two years has taught me many things: who to trust, where I belong, what success is to me, etc… but the most important thing I learned is that you can never truly be happy without feeling at home.  

“Home” is a concept that is abstract. Some make their homes in others, some consider home to be a state of mind, but for me home is a much more simple concept: it is being connected to your past while still working towards the promise of a future.

Eastern Kentucky provides me with all of the elements for success and happiness...Some condemn Appalachia because of an economy that was based on coal production. There are those that see no way out of the current situation that this area faces, with the decline of coal over the past few years. I however, having lived through a similar experience, consider being at your most hopeless an opportunity for the most growth. There is not only hope for this region, but vast opportunities. The “reset” button has been hit for Appalachia, and it is up to all of the prodigal sons and daughters to make the most of this fresh start. I can feel a change approaching. There is a call to arms for all of us who thought our only hope for opportunities were outside these hills. As the prodigals of Appalachia begin to have their own children I predict a massive “homecoming.” Even the biggest of churches wouldn’t be able to hold us. There is work to be done.

I can feel a change approaching. There is a call to arms for all of us who thought our only hope for opportunities were outside these hills. As prodigals of Appalachia begin to have their own children I predict a massive “homecoming.: Even the biggest churches would’t be able to hold us. There is work to be done.