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Publisher gives up the fast lane By Nancy Herndon Th« Christian Science Monitor COPPERHILL, Tenn.—Five years ago Maryann Herbermann, then 54, vice-president of an Atlanta advertis ing agency and a pressure-driven ur banite, bought a house in a quiet hol low of the Appalachians. Visiting on the weekends, she grew close to the forests and farms, the small towns, and the close-knit fam ilies of the area. Bit by bit, she learned the secrets and stories of the hills. And her imagination was captured for life. “There is an endless folklore, an endless heritage, an unbelieveable number of people stashed in the hills up here, full of stories,” the energetic former executive says. She is explain ing why she quit her well-paying city job and moved year-round to her mountain house, to start a small mag azine called Mountaineer Times. Originally intended as mainly a guide to events, the magazine quickly grew into a “sort of verbal patchwork quilt,” as Ms. Haberann describes it, that stitches together the history, folklore, crafts and events of the mountains from Alabama to Pennsyl vania. A warm, casual read, its sto ries wander comfortably from pro files of mountain newcomers, to profiles of families whose mountain roots go back for centuries, to recipes for cheese com bread and apple nut cake. In the fall-winter issue, an elderly couple recall the early days of their marriage, when Copperhill, now a stark and denuded ghost town, was a thriving mining camp and the hills outside the town glowed with hot slag. An earlier issue carries a history of a local Cherokee Indian family whose ancestors escaped relocation when the Cherokee nation was forcibly moved from the Appalachians in the 19th century. Stories have profiled country singer Jean Ritchie and 71-year-old world hiker Jon Mackey, described how to build a log cabin and repair antiques, and reviewed local rafting and moun tain climbing spots. Regular features cover crafts, music, food, events, and places. It is a homey-feeling publica tion, printed on soft white paper, with photos that look like (and sometimes are) old family snapshots. But like many dreams come to life, publishing the Mountaineer Times has been in some ways more of a chal lenge than Herbermann expected when she launched the first issue with the help of her old friend, Eileen Kerr, two years ago. The magazine, which comes out three times a year, is a labor of love not only for Herbermann but for all the editors and contributors; every one who works on it is a volunteer. Circulation has struggled up to 4,000, but each issue is still published at a net loss. And as the primary writer and only full-time staff member, Herbermann has clocked some 30,000 miles on her BEWARE! Someone maybe watching your home or business The Average Success Rate Burglary 99% The Burglar: •Requires no training *Works when he wants •Works where he wants *Pays no taxes •Average Income S 7OO per 4 minutes! We Have Just The Solution COM m 'TER LOGIC SYSTEMS A crime Prevention Sentinel to Deter Criminals Attempting To Enter Your Home Call 404-889-5279 J. Pruitt CRIME RESEARCH, INC. "Specializing In Crime Prevention" Computer Logic Systems Closed Circuit TV Systems PET OWNERS! REMEMBER YOUR LAST TRIP TO THE VET? •Did your dog try to help you drive? •Did your cat dance on your head? Or under the pedals? •Maybe your pet did something "unmentionable" on the upholstery? •Wonder why you had so many pets? •Swear to take only one at a time from now on? •Was the office open when you finally got there? •Did you enjoy the "peace & tranquility" of the waiting room? •Does your pet ever get sick outside of regular working hours? THEN REMEMBER US NEXT TIME Pet Vet Will Travel The House Call Vet Complete Veterinary Care in Your Home Evening & Weekend Appointments Available Reasonable Spay /Neuter Fees Tracy Whittaker Davis, D.V.M. 887-1565 PRINT ‘There is an endless folklore, an endless heritage, an unbe lieveable number of people stashed in the hills up here, full of stories,’ says Maryann Herbermann. She is explaining why she quit her well-paying Atlanta job and moved year-round to her mountain house, to start a small magazine called Mountaineer Times. four-wheel-drive Isuzu in less than a year, driving along down dirt roads, no roads, through brush, and over mountainsides in four states in search of stories. She works out of her cedar-shingled house at the end of a twisting plung ing, clay road that looks as if it sees traffic no more than once a week. (In fact, she says, it sees traffic at least once a day she picks up her mail in Copperhill that often.) But with every new story and issue, she has become more fascinated with the people and past of the Appala chians. “When you come to the moun tains, something different happens,” she says, looking beyond her porch at the creek and serene forest. “It’s an altogether different life. It overpow ered me.” Talking with local people and watching the current issue of the mag azine take shape “really lifts you right out of your day-to-day exis tence,” she says, adding that she had always craved more of a creative out let than offered by her former job of managing a media buying group for the advertising agency. “I enjoy put ting something together that I think people would enjoy reading,” she says. ‘I enjoy watching something grow.” To help the magazine find an au thentic mountain voice, Herbermann has been working since last summer with a writers’ group, Sassafras Lit erary Exchange, of nearby Jasp' Ga. “It’s their families that make up the history of the area,” she notes, saying that what the writers lack in informal English grammar, they make up for in telling. She has spoken at Sassafras meet ings, edited some of the writers’ poet ry and nostalgia pieces, and printed pieces in the magazine. “She makes you feel good about yourself and what you’re doing,” says Linda Crider, a local writer who has been published twice in the Mountain eer Times. “That’s important to Ap palachian people.” The magazine has also published stories by local schoolchildren. In deed, it seems to provide a satisfying creative outlet to all who work on it. “It has been marvelous therapy for me,” says managing editor Kerr, a full-time textbook consultant in Atlan ta who had lost her husband to illness just before Herbermann started the magazine. Ms. Kerr spends weekends at her mountain house or with Herbermann, writing, rewriting, researching sto ries, and proofreading the copy they produce on a computer desktop pub lisher, which sits on a Victorian desk in Herbermann’s small office. “It’s a real getaway,” says Kerr. “I get paid in satisfaction and happiness.” Other editors are creative director Linda Mitchell, an Atlanta graphic arts de signer, and photography editor Bill Kautz, a local photojoumalist. The board of directors is composed of six local people, who monitor the maga zine’s accurate and sensitive portray al of the region. Readers are as varied as the moun tains’ rich cultural life. Some are lo cal people, interested in profiles of their neighbors and friends. Others are retired people who have moved to the Appalachians from other areas and are looking for insights and information. Herbermann says letters show that subscribers from places as distant as Michigan, Minnesota, Florida, and California are mostly vacationers who have passed through the area, be come smitten with it, and want to stay in touch. Distribution of the magazine is han dled through bookstores, craft shops, antique centers and restaurants in 21 towns in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. rhe magazine has also recently ex panded into a mail order department for regional books, linking up with a local distributor of backpacking and wilderness guides, books of Indian folklore, and the like. Despite the financial pressure, the magazine carries only a few simple, medium-type ads. “I hate advertis ing,” Herbermann confides, in the tone of one who has made a clean break with the past. Mountaineer Times advertisers are mostly folksy and compatible businesses, such a craft centers and wilderness outfit ters. The fall-winter issue for the first time carries real estate ads, but they are modestly drawn, even whimsical things; one has a logo of a duck in a top hat. Work and money concerns aside, Herbermann is as conspicuously proud of the magazine as anyone who ever left behind a successful career to risk a dram. She is committed to pub lishing it three to five years, she says, even at a loss if necessary, to give it a chance to build circulation. If it fails, she says stoically, she’ll go on to other things. But for now, it is her compul sion and fascination. “People here have so much locked in their heads, especially the older people,” she says, “I could go on for 50 years and not run out of stories.” ( ) B I V> J y \|B r\\ W yvy v\ i I wy w 'qy \| V \ O J SUNSHINE KENNELS 887-0600 j c Rasw6ll G MallWf\wM ciStwa ifwTHt W V CTIH JUNCTION OF RT 9 AND / Please check HOLCOMB BRIDGE ROAD /limes daily GARBAGE RAIL KIDS (PG) 2:30 5:00 HIDING OUT (PGI3) 7:30 10:00 FATAL ATTRACTIONS <R) 2:05 4:30 7:00 9:43 HELLO AGAIN (PG) 2:13 4:45 7:15 9:43 DIRTY DANCING (PG-13) 2:15 4:43 7:13 9:45 HOWLING 111 (R) 2:30 3:00 7.30 10:00 SEATS FOR SHOWS BEFORE 6:00—‘2.75 | FORSYTH COUNTY SCHOOL LUNCH MENU l Menus are subject to change depen ding on deliveries & commodities MONDAY, DEC. 7th i Submarine Sandwich I Tomato & Lettuce French Fries Banana \ Choice of Milk TUESDAY, DEC. Bth Vegetable Beef Soup | (Fr. Mixed Veg.) I Cheese/P. Butter Sand. i Pears | Cake Square Choice of Milk WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9th Taco Tubs Lettuce/Tomato/Cheese Whole Kernel Corn Raisin Bread Choice of Milk THURSDAY, DEC. 10th Batter Dipped Fish v Cheese Wedge French Fries Pineapple Upside Down Cake Choice of Milk FRIDAY, DEC. 11th | Spaghetti Meat Sauce Broccoli/Carrot Strip/Dip Corn on Cob Strawberry Shortcake Choice of Milk School Menu brought to you courtesy of J HrrTX C mom, { BIRTHDAY 1 Jj PARTIES L f/T 4 '* It's fun and eaty K- on you! A 1 Call for info. & reserv ! | CUMMINC SKATE •( CENTER * 88S-KATE \ SCHOOL LUNCH MENU THE PET CENTER, Inc. 889-6620 GROOMING TOO! Birds, Fish, Puppies, Kittens, Reptiles, Small Animals and all Their Supplies Tire-D of not having Wheels? Check our auto section in the Classifieds! THREE MEN AND A BABY (PG) 2:00 4:30 7:00 9:30 BIG BAD MOMMA II (*) 2:13 4:45 7:13 9:43 MARY LOU PROM NIGHT II (R) 2:30 5:00 7:30 10:00 MADE IN HEAVEN (PG) 2:00 4:30 7:00 9:30 TEEN WOLF TWO (PG) 2:15 4:43 7:13 9:43 Dear Dr. Purpura, After suffering with a bad back for the past year I finally decided to try and see if a chiropractor can help me. My medical doctor's treatment consisted of giving me drugs to take which killed my pain but made me feel drunk. And as soon as I ran out of the drugs, my back was hurting just as bad. My question to you is how do I go about choosing a competent doc tor of Chiropractic? I have read the ads in the paper where free services are offered by chiroprac tors, but I worry about a doctor who has to give his services away. Could you help? Concerned Dear Concerned, Your situation is one that we are very familiar with. Most patients who come to our office often come after first going to their medical doctor or orthopedist surgeon. A medical doctor or or thopdist are trained to treat il lness with drugs. While I agree that for certain situations drugs are necessary and vital, in my opi nion drugs are vastly over prescribed by the medical profes sion. Very often these drugs cause serious and harmful side effects. Pain is your body's way of telling you that something is wrong. Drugs simply mask the pain without getting to the cause. Chiropractic gets to the cause and corrects it without harmful drugs or surgery. I, too, am also very concerned about doctors who advertise "free'' services. Most of those doc tors are newly licensed physicians using "free" services as o practice building gimmick. Very often these "free" services end up costing the patient as much or more than if they went to a competent physician in the first place. Your health is too impor tant to trust to a doctor who runs I THE PERFECI’ GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE IN ANY DOLLAR VALUE AT ALL BOX OFFICES. GET YOURS NOW! in I WHOOPI IS THE COP. f starring J,: vj WHOOPI GOLDBERG m SAM ELLIOTT _ ■ MGM UU 2^ ■f11,%. WlmKu: ■ JB I • L •' f y iLm. m t i Ch XSr FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS-SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1987- Health Views Mon thru Fri 7:20 9:30 Sat & Sun 2:50 5:10 7:20 9:30 Mon thru Fri 7:05 9:10 Sat & Sun 2:45 5:00 7:05 9:10 Mon thru Fri 7:10 9:20 Sat & Sun 2:40 5:00 7:10 9:20 Win Free Movie Passes to this or any Cinelex Odeon Plitt Theatre by watching W.A.T.L. Super Stars of Wrestling, Channel 36, Saturday nights with hosts Joe Pedicino and Soni Blackstone. I p - ipl Wmm, H I— m Dr. Mike Purpura BS DC. A Public Service from; BROWN CHIROPRACTIC CLINIC 887-7234 Hwy. 9-South Cumming, Ga. his practice like a fast food chain. Remember "you get what you pay for." When you pay nothing you usually get just that. Nothing. The best way to choose your doc tor of Chiropractic is to find a doc tor in your community who enjoys a good reputation and who has o long history of caring service in your community. Often these are the doctors who care most about your health and do not use "gimmicks" to attract patients. Patients come to them because they know they will receive quality, caring service. Sincerely, Dr. M.A. Purpura Do you have a question for Dr. Purpura? Send your question to: BROWN CHIROPRACTIC fLINIf 1330 Atlanta Hwy. vsiriiv. Cumming GA 30130 Your name will not be used. CUMMING CINEMA Tri-County Plaza. Highway 19, 889-2038 Mary Lou wants to be prom queen. Even if it kills her. Again. Well* W»ry|w PROM NIGHT II A SAMUEL GOLDWYN fTTI COMPANY RELEASE [*<J “The Running Man” is a deadly game no one has ever survived... SCHWARZENEGGER THE RUNNING MAN TRI-STAR PICTURES [®3 3B