Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2019 - 74

GUEST COLUMN
By RODDY MOORE

Old Cultures Live on
as New Ones Meld
Roddy Moore is the executive director of the Blue Ridge Institute and
Museum at Ferrum College in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of
Virginia. He has a fascination with hotrods, moonshining, Great Road
Pottery and Thunderbird jewelry of the Santa Domingo Pueblo in New
Mexico. He lives with his wife, Sally Moore, and their two Vizsla "girls,"
Dixie and Ginger, and helps tend to their national champion Percherons.

s a folklorist for all of my adult working life,
I've been able to do what I truly enjoy for a living-talking to old-timers and looking for regional examples of folkart, like blanket chests
and pie safes. And I've been in the best of places
to do this-the Blue Ridge of Virginia. For close
to half a century, I have been crisscrossing the
region from the Piedmont on the east to the Great Valley
that borders its western slopes. I've discovered that the
complexity of this physical landscape is about as diverse
as the people that have settled here.
The Blue Ridge is rich and distinct in its folklore and
folkways-how we live and our stories and traditions.
That's because our common heritage has been influenced by the many cultural groups that settled here and
also by the ones that migrated through on their way to
other parts of the country.
And let's not forget that the men in the region, who
served in the military for centuries, traveled the world
and brought back with them their unique cultural experiences. The Blue Ridge is still evolving with the presence of
other cultural groups like the Hispanic population which

is prevalent throughout the region. I'm excited to see
what impact this will have on the cultural landscape.
From a lifetime of collecting oral histories from thousands of craftspeople, musicians, tradespeople and other
tradition bearers, I've learned how important their cultural identity is to them. These people love where they
live, have a deep appreciation of how they have been
raised, and they don't mind sharing what they know.
It's this unselfishness and kindheartedness that are truly
the most extraordinary to me. I have witnessed it with
some very special people that I was lucky enough to get to
know-folks like the late Daniel Womack, a blind AfricanAmerican gentleman who was a dishwasher at the Hotel
Roanoke, but most of all, an amazing storyteller and musician; and Wayne Henderson, a renowned guitarist and
guitar maker who never fails to share his knowledge and
time with others. It's humbling and heartwarming to see
folks in my own county taking their time, and sometimes
money, to educate others about traditional folkways that
they have always wanted to share.
I've never forgotten what Rik Cooke, the National Geographic photographer, said to me when we were visiting
a small church in the community
of Woolwine, Virginia, on a cold,
snowy morning. We observed how
many of the elderly members were
escorted into the church by the
younger members. Rik said, "The
Blue Ridge is not about the beauty
of the natural landscape. It's about
the kindness of the people."
And for me, too, that is what
makes the Blue Ridge such a special place.

"The Blue Ridge is not about the beauty
of the natural landscape. It's about the
kindness of the people."
Rik Cooke

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Blue Ridge Country - January/February 2019

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