Country Boys

Anna and I stayed up past our bedtime tonight to watch "Country Boys" - a new documentary airing on PBS for the next three nights. It's fascinating television. It's a story about life in a small, rural part of Eastern Kentucky. The show seems to retread old themes about the Appalachian territory - poverty, depression, the effects of alcohol and tobacco, and anemic educational opportunities. But these ambiguous themes are personified and personalized through the daily events in two boys' lives.

One of the boys, Chris, lives in a trailer-home with his mom who provides support by working as a maid since the father cannot work; the father has cirrhosis and is an alcoholic. Chris seems witty, endearing and bright, but he is also plagued by a constant since of failure. Or, maybe, it's a fear of success, for the closer Chris comes to doing a good job at school the more he risks alienating himself from the one place he feels most secure: his family. The blatant example of this in the first episode is Chris' decision to edit a school newspaper. While he initially speaks boldly about doing it, he eventually is hounded by the added responsibility and pressure it brings. And on the critical day it is to go to print, Chris decides to stay home and help his family move into a new trailer home. Chris' story makes clear the consequences of "bettering" yourself - the guilt and loneliness from stepping away from the familiar and pursuing new endeavors.

The other boy, Cody, has already experienced a tumultuous life. At the age of 12, his father went to a strip-club and gunned down Cody's step-mother. Then, Cody's father turned the gun on himself, asked God to forgive him and shot himself. Cody, subsequently is deeply troubled. Pain, confusion, frustration, innocence and brokeness all seem to boil beneath his rather stoic and dulled over facial expressions. He gives the quintessential "I don't care" posture when it is clear to the observer that much effects him. To top of his complexity, Cody is a Christian - and he is intent on playing heavy metal "Christian" music as a way to both release his suffering and praise his Savior.

Anyhow, these stories fascinate me. For one, they strike a deep place in my own family history. I am mindful of the place poverty has played in my grandparent's past - particularly of my grandpa, Les Slinker, who grew up in Kentucky. The struggle and battle to get a degree, let alone many, the tragedy of seeing your parents grow sick or die early from what should be curable or avoidable conditions, the pressure to make something of yourself or else - these are foreign but also familial realities. And I cannot help but recall the economic diversity of our country - knowing the drastic difference between Zionsville and Sheridan (or northern and southern Pasadena).

Secondly, I was intrigued by the role of Christianity in the community. Signs outside of churches declared, "The Cross is better than Blue Cross," or they asked, "How do you need to be livin' to be livin' up here? - God." The good intent is to make people grasp the hope of the Gospel, but the subtle effect is shame and superiority. While reminding people of the "good and true," they also (by comparison) remind people of the poor and improper. That just makes people less satisfied with their personal life, not more satisfied with their church or spirituality. What social security recipient or alcoholic is going to drive by that church sign and feel God's love? So faith, God, the Bible and Sunday School become largely about social status.

Finally, I was impressed with how grand are the forces that affect our lives. For instance, Cody and Chris cannot fully grasp how significant their families were and are to their own development. There was a scene where Cody goes on-line to research the newspaper clippings from his father's muder/suicide. He takes it all in, reads the facts, but how in the world can you really comprehend that? How can you make sense of it, or explain it, except only to say that it is in you, a part of you that will never die. You take something like that and then you add all the natural desires and longings of a teenage boy - the budding sexuality, the desire to be different yet accepted - and then you top that off with the reality that we are spiritual beings, constantly shapped by an Immortal hand. Now, add that all up and you've got a wild soup of soul forming. But that's life.

As Chris was working on the newspaper, he commented off-the-cuff, "I don't give a sh-t about being recognized or being a celebrity, I just want this to have meaning." And as all of life's forces collide and build a reality and a future for Cody and Chris, you get the sense that success is really only a dream and finding a way to get clarity or at least get some "meaning" is probably as good as it may get from their limited perspective. Unfortunately, making meaning is much easier to do watching the documentary on PBS than it is for Cody and Chris in eastern Kentucky.

What's my life look like as a documentary? What does yours?

Wes