Thoughts on my favorite shitholes

Donald Trump wondering aloud why the U.S. is only attractive to immigrants from shithole countries has been all over the news.

Honestly, I don't care about the language any more -- although I would like to say to him "so you kiss your kids with that mouth?"

It's the sentiment, not the word, that makes me so very sad for our country. Experience tells me that Trump is only giving voice to what many Americans feel and pass on to each other, if not so blatantly as the president.

As a young child, I spent the first 12 years or so of my life living on West 8th Street in Covington. Right now, Covington is sort of becoming trendy, but not so much then. Even within the community there was a sort of hierarchy. . . Latonia and West Covington constantly tried to distance themselves from the rest of the city. And, of course, West 8th was certainly a step up from West 7th. What I didn't know until I went to college was that the rest of the area considered all of Covington a shithole city.

Even now nearly 50 years later, I get looks from people who are familiar with the area, when they find out I graduated from Holmes. In college, I learned quickly to say I was from Northern Kentucky rather than Covington.

The paternal side of my family is from the Appalachian Mountains. I loved the mountains as a young girl (and still do). I loved the family, the music, the stories, the food, but I kept that close to my heart as well because society had already told me that the hills of Eastern Kentucky was a shithole with nothing but moonshiners, pill pushers and disability checks.

My mother's family lived on a farm that is still beautiful, but the house my grandparents lived in until their death was a four room cabin, with uneven floors, and no running water. I was amazed at  how self-sufficient they were with milk from cows, my grandma making rugs from rags, using lard from the hogs for soap, but I kept that to myself as well. For as anyone can see, only folks from a shithole use an outhouse and shovel cow manure onto their vegetable gardens.

In my 40s, I finally realized that my experiences were all sacred times in sacred places, and I'm quick to tell anyone about how deeply my roots are in Kentucky (and that some of us even wear shoes).

I'm also quick to tell them that even after doing a fair amount of traveling, Eastern Kentucky is the prettiest place on earth. And that we used that outhouse again when my daughter and her husband were married on the front porch of that little house in what may have been the most beautiful wedding of all time. I can tell you the stories of my childhood-- buying bubblegum at Jean's store on the corner with an empty coke bottle, roller skating with one skate so a friend could skate with the other, watching the old ladies on West 8th walk to mass with handkerchiefs on their heads.

Yesterday, the gospel reading came from John 1, where Nathaniel says to Phillip, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" Translated into the President's language, "Can a valuable person come from the shithole city of Nazareth?" Thankfully, that question has been answered.

Somebody needs to let the President know.