The Red Velvet Lawyer

My Farewell  to a Staple Food I recently described myself as a bacon-eating Buddhist.  I know.  The contradiction is not lost on me. I grew up in the Midwest, the granddaughter of Illinois farmers on both sides of the family.  As kids, we would often visit the Drinkwater family farm located outside Virginia, Illinois.  The pig sty was not too far from Grandma Drinkwater's back stoop. Perhaps that made it easier to "slop" the pigs. Their sharp hooves dug up the mud, creating a squishy mud wallow .  (You would like the definition of wallow.) They would  . . . well, wallow in it, much to our delight. Sometimes, the pigs would lie up next to the wire fence.  We could reach our little fingers through the wire to rub their mud-caked hide that was covered in bristles. We watched their snouts probe the air and then the mud. We laughed at their squeals and snuffles.  Pigs! Later, out under the huge trees over in the side yard, sit...

So long ASL.   It's Been Very Good  to Know You! Letting go of place also involves letting go of the law school I have called home for 13 years. It involves letting go of my faculty colleagues at the Appalachian School of Law, many of whom are also in the midst of a transition to a new job and locale.  It means letting go of students with whom I've built relationships.  It means saying good-bye to a certain type of teaching to a certain population of students -  mostly first generation college or grad school students from the central Appalachian region.  It involves giving up a large office I've loved on the "library side" of the award-winning building that houses the law school. It means saying best wishes to staff members who have always been helpful, hopeful, effective, dedicated, and cheerful. It means leaving a community where service was at the core of operations for many ...

For 13 Years, I've Called the Central Appalachian Mountains my Home These lush mountains provide a home and identity for proud, resourceful, self-reliant Appalachians who express a hospitality that combines both mountain and southern values.  They emphasize family ties, community, and church.  They use power washers like no other population I've ever met, probably because mold and coal dust tends to coat walls, porches, and other outside structures in this wet climate . . . and because, contrary to the stereotype, they are fastidious housekeepers and take great pride in their homes, yards, and gardens.  These mountains  shelter wildlife that includes black bears, panthers, coyotes, deer, timber rattlesnakes, migrating birds and butterflies, raptors, owls, mourning doves, ravens, groundhogs, spring peepers, cranes, and chipmunks.  I've also spotted blue-tailed lizards and voles in my own garden. My Facebook friends a...