Jared Goforth.
"You can make it work wherever you're at."
Couple weeks back, drove out to Martin County, Kentucky. Fifty miles off the interstate, nestled in the Appalachians. The land is steep and the roads are curvy, often following the countours of rivers. It’s coal country. Every family has some connection. A brother who worked underground, a cousin who trucks coal, a father who worked the surface. Since the mid-2000s, the industry has been scapegoated and decimated. The jobs, population and morale too.
Was in town to get to know the area in preparation for a multi-day event we’ll be doing this October with the Rural Revival Project.
Dwayne Mills has spent much of his life there, and was kind enough to give myself and Pastor Mike (a fellow team member at RRP) an in-depth tour of the area. Dwayne’s a natural leader with a relentless optimism and an easy charisma. After mentioning to him that Leave It Better makes documentaries about farmers, he immediately insisted we go out and meet Jared.
After a drive, we turned into the Fluty Lick holler. (Holler = a narrow strip of land between two mountains. Lick = a natural deposit where animals go to lick up minerals). The roads went from paved to dirt, and from dirt to gravel. Jared’s farm was at the top of a very steep and long section of driveway, that made us begin to question the integrity of Dwayne’s minivan.
Meeting Jared is kind of like looking out from a mountaintop on a cool summer’s evening. He has an energy about him that his inviting, profoundly calm and spiritually wholesome. Before long, Dwayne asked for music, and Jared got the banjo out and nimbly navigated fingers along the strings, producing a bluegrass that felt like it had more in common with the songs of the birds in the surrounding white pines than the stuff on the radio.
Jared then showed his root cellar, with dozens of jars of homegrown green beans, jams, hot sauces, etc. He mentioned was a little more empty than usual because the family had been eating from it throughout the winter. Before long our group headed out.
Came back the next day solo, to film more, and upon arrival the second time, the driveway did not seem as steep. As his house came into view, it felt somewhat like arriving into the Shire. Or put another way, Jared’s family has lived in this one holler for centuries, and he’s more at home, more at peace in his surroundings than anyone have previously met. It’s not a place forgotten by time though, and Jared explained in our interview that he sees his work as a balance between modern technologies and old ones. There are cordless drills from DeWalt next to push plows made two hundred years earlier. A new Kubota tractor alongside a broadside axe. Several years back he even launched a YouTube channel- Fluty Lick Homestead- that has grown rapidly, a testimony to the purity of his motivations: Meeting other homesteaders and preserving memories for grandkids.
As a teenager, Jared was fascinated with antique tools, and was often told by elders he was a seventy year-old man trapped in an eighteen year-old body, a description he embraces. An old soul in a new world. After the interview, filmed him hoeing crops and pulling weeds. Dozens of miles from any major road, and way up in the mountains the sounds were distinctly unmotorized- the constant hum of the locusts and the occasional chime when his hoe hit a rock, before he threw it clear of the garden into the steep ravine below.
Next he fixed the tractor, and plowed up a small patch of flatish land to plant. Then he moved his grandfather’s horse uphill to a paddock with fresh grass. Finally, he repaired a push plough, expertly adjusting the angle of the wooden handles and the metal wheel, so it was a natural fit for his height. Had another shoot later in the afternoon with some retired coal miners, so we called it there. He gifted some homegrown jam, and spicy cowboy salsa unlabeled in small glass mason jars. Grateful, said goodbye and headed back down through the holler and out into the rest of the world.
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best thoughts,
Graham