i'm on a kind of coal-country/bluegrass music road trip with my mom (the indominatable joyce abell, 83) in far southwest virginia, west virginia, and eastern kentucky. we've been staying, believe it or not, at the ralph stanley museum and traditional music center in clintwood, va. jim and jesse, the stonemans, the carter family are all from this region of virginia, and we've been listening to all of them on the drive. ma is being generous about that: probably, all things considered, more into beethoven. we visited the appalshop in whitesburg, ky, which produces important documentaries about appalachia and runs a wonderful bluegrass radio station. ma taught a course on appalachia in 1974 at kennedy high school in montgomery county md, partly based on the classic book night comes to the cumberlands, by harry caudill, and they went through this area, including the appalshop. we did some amazing drives through these astonishing hills, which are as beautiful as any land i have ever seen, and we saw devastating evidence of strip-mining and mountain-top removal. i'm going to do more on that later.