Dear Coach,
The first part of my life was spent growing up in Appalachia. Not the “JD-Vance-I-have-a-cousin-in-Southeast-Ohio, and-now-the-New-York-Times-likes-me”-sort of Appalachia. Real-ass Appalachia.
Cousins in county fair wrestling circuits, dirt track stock car races, half the family with owner-operator CDLs, hog-brains-and-eggs, truck stop-waitressing, cistern water-drinking, wrecked teeth-having, lack of rural electrification, outhouse with rattlesnakes, subsistence-farming, raw tobacco leaf-chewing, shared a chicken back with my brother on Sundays, sister died of whooping cough, an uncle who was an honest to god ditch digger-Appalachia.
And alcohol to get away from it all, to balm the wounds, to heal the psychic scars, to make it through another day of hard, hard living.