What is Shanky Bottom ?!

A question that we often get:

So what is Shanky Bottom? That's a weird name for a newsletter.

Shanky Bottom is a village in the southern highlands, hidden from travelers on the highways and parkways of the big mountains, but known well by poets and preachers and politicians and undefined others who go there to think and rest and quench their thirsting souls. There is an invisible playground there, invisible because it is a playground in the idea world, and it has fountains aplenty for those who thirst.

There are two boarding houses in the village, and eight or ten additional rooms are available from individual home owners who rent out a room or two in their homes to travelers who come to Shanky Bottom to rest and shelter from worldly burdens for a moment. The boarding houses have a high occupancy and a high turnover rate because they are de facto hotels, offering food and lodging to these same temporary visitors.

At the edge of the village there is a bar, aptly named Shanky Bar. Many of its patrons are there for spirits and brew, and others come for the noon meal, where they enjoy an ample serving of a meat and three vegetables. For those who do not fancy a particular meat and three offering, the cook will prepare a burger that surely must rank among the top four or five in the world. Every burger is seared on the flattop until it is crispy and almost black. If one does not like crispy and almost black burger, one will not get a burger in Shanky Bar. But not to worry. The cook will inform any such customer that mushy, uncooked burgers are available in the next town, about seven or eight miles away. The bar also has a small grocery section where customers can buy their essentials when a trip to the grocery store in the next town may not be convenient.

There are other points of interest in the village, including one house which hosts the Shanky Bottom Newsletter and Idea Center, and another which is the home and office of the archbishop of Appalachia, known by everyone here and throughout the region, from northern Mississippi to southern New York, as Archie. These houses are on adjacent plots and there are daily comings and goings between them. Plots in this part of the world are usually an acre or two, and here everyone has a kitchen garden and some small livestock -- a few chickens, some pigs, maybe a milk goat or two, maybe some lambs. Archie's place and the Idea Center are no exception, each having a nice little garden and small livestock shed in the back yard. There is constant activity at both places, both inside and outside. The Idea Center has developed significantly over the last few years, and its voice is the Newsletter. Use your imagination about the other houses in the village. Some interesting people have settled here over the years.

And that's about it. Shanky Bottom is a pretty mountain village, but its real attraction is not its beauty but rather its offering of a special nourishment, an encounter with the ineffable. Come see us, but come hungry and come thirsty.