Are you a Hillbilly? I am
Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 5:30 pm
Part of an article from the Bluefield Daily Telegraph ---
In the 50s and early 60s, Myrtle Beach is the only beach I knew ---
[tweet]"I’m a hillbilly. Have been since birth and believe it or not I’m proud of it. Hillbilly, like most things that deal with the Appalachian Mountains, is a term that is usually misunderstood. Scholars tend to disagree a little as to the actual source of the word, but it is usually rooted in the people that came to settle the Appalachian and Ozark Mountains.
Many of these early settlers were from England, lowland Scotland, and the province of Ulster in Ireland. How they came to be here, and the derivation of the name is well, complicated. Some say it relates to the term “hill-folk” (often used to refer to people that prefer isolation to living in cities) as they came to be known when they made their way into the wilds of the eastern mountains and away from the settled part of eastern Virginia. The term “Billy” is widely used across the British Isles to denote a friend or companion. So, you see the term, which is often used in a derogatory way, may not exactly mean what you thought.
Ok, that is way more than you wanted to hear about the source of the term Hillbilly, what we are talking about here today is the phenomenon of the hill people, my people, trekking to the eastern seashore every summer for the annual “beach trip”. In the 1940’s and 50’s there was a stream of hill people leaving the Appalachians to go to northern industrial cites like Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago to find work, but they also discovered the beaches of the Atlantic shore.
Myrtle Beach South Carolina will forever be known as the most popular beach for many families from the mountains, especially West Virginians. Many of you out there remember the long trip, pre-interstate highways."[/tweet]
In the 50s and early 60s, Myrtle Beach is the only beach I knew ---
[tweet]"I’m a hillbilly. Have been since birth and believe it or not I’m proud of it. Hillbilly, like most things that deal with the Appalachian Mountains, is a term that is usually misunderstood. Scholars tend to disagree a little as to the actual source of the word, but it is usually rooted in the people that came to settle the Appalachian and Ozark Mountains.
Many of these early settlers were from England, lowland Scotland, and the province of Ulster in Ireland. How they came to be here, and the derivation of the name is well, complicated. Some say it relates to the term “hill-folk” (often used to refer to people that prefer isolation to living in cities) as they came to be known when they made their way into the wilds of the eastern mountains and away from the settled part of eastern Virginia. The term “Billy” is widely used across the British Isles to denote a friend or companion. So, you see the term, which is often used in a derogatory way, may not exactly mean what you thought.
Ok, that is way more than you wanted to hear about the source of the term Hillbilly, what we are talking about here today is the phenomenon of the hill people, my people, trekking to the eastern seashore every summer for the annual “beach trip”. In the 1940’s and 50’s there was a stream of hill people leaving the Appalachians to go to northern industrial cites like Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago to find work, but they also discovered the beaches of the Atlantic shore.
Myrtle Beach South Carolina will forever be known as the most popular beach for many families from the mountains, especially West Virginians. Many of you out there remember the long trip, pre-interstate highways."[/tweet]