Q&A: Zell Miller talks about latest book, avoids politics

Former U.S. senator and Georgia Gov. Zell Miller always makes an impression. When he’s passionate about something he speaks with the zeal of a preacher.

Now Miller has poured some of that passion into his latest book, “Purt Nigh Gone: The Old Mountain Ways.” It’s at once a meditation on one of his favorite topics, the historic culture of Appalachia, and a lamentation over its wane. Here the man from Young Harris talks about hog killing, stereotypes and keeping his word.

Q: Why another book about mountain ways? You’ve written a lot about it already.

A: Because I could see these old mountain ways disappearing. And I wanted to put down, between two covers, some of my thoughts on mountain ways before they were gone.

Q: But others have written about the lost ways of Appalachia extensively as well, so you felt like you needed to add to it?

A: Most of those writers, especially [renowned North Carolina writer] Horace Kephart, when he wrote his, that life was still going on. It’s not going on any more. This dialect, that I spend a chapter on, is rapidly disappearing. It’s not many people that talk like that and use those quaint phrases anymore. You’re a writer. Why do you write?

Q: To pay my mortgage. But also because you find something you’re interested in and you want to explore it.

A: Well, it’s my life. I’m 77 years old. I sleep in the same bedroom I slept in when I was a baby. But this road in front of me, that used to have a car go by every 30 minutes or so, now has 11,000 cars go by a day. It’s changed.

Q: Do you feel like you were writing something of a eulogy?

A: [Laughs for a long time.] For me or for the mountains?

Q: The mountains. In spots in the book you were wistful, in others mournful.

A: … I just wanted to put some of these thoughts down before I’m history.

Q: Some of what you write about, patterns of speech for example, I grew up hearing people speak that way and still hear it now, so it’s not completely gone.

A: How old are you?

Q: [Not that old.]

A: Good. I’m sure you have. But some of this I wanted them to know where [the dialect originally] came from. It wasn’t Li’l Abner or Snuffy Smith speaking, but it was Chaucer and Shakespeare.

Q: You take umbrage at these caricatures. But most people don’t still view the mountains like that, do they?

A: A lot of that is changing because you don’t have those comic strips anymore. Snuffy Smith faded out not long ago. A few people still, when they think of mountain people, they think of [the movie] “Deliverance” and that pitiful little banjo picker. But that has changed because a lot of people have moved to the mountains in the last 20 years, and most of those people have come from Florida or people from the North who moved to Florida and then decided they didn’t like Florida and moved halfway back. We call them halfbacks.

Q: Tell me more about these halfbacks.

A: [Nervous laughter.] No, I don’t want to. …

Q: OK, well, what aspect of mountain culture will be enduring?

A: The food … and well … some will think this is important, others will think, “Oh there he goes telling the same story again.” The other day I had one of my critics tell me, “You know I’ve read all your mountain books and this is the third time you’ve told me about how to kill a hog.” So I’ll make sure that if I write another book that I’ll leave that part out.

Q: When you agreed to this interview you said you’d do it as long as we didn’t talk about politics. Why don’t you want to talk about it?

A: I’m no longer in politics. I spent 50 years as a participator, now I’m a spectator.

Q: Ever thought about moving from spectator to commentator?

A: I’ve done that.

Q: OK, I’ve got you.

A: Have you?

Q: Have I what?

A: Really got me?

Q: I do, quite frankly. Well, I know you’re spending your time writing, but do you pay attention —

A: (Laughs.)

Q: No, no. Do you pay attention to what’s going on out there, like with the current administration?

A: Rosalind, Rosalind, you’re not going to get me there. Thank you.