THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9606030208
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: 74 lines
Since 1991 readers of the Southwest Virginia Enterprise, the Bland Messenger and the Smyth County News have been following weekly columns of the Piney Woods Philosopher.
The septuagenarian's meditations, set forth in the third person, are one part poultice, one part vinegar and one part high-test Tabasco.
``Piney would understand the hunting of animals for food,'' he wrote, ``and his and all other Southwest Virginia family ancestors had survived through muzzle loaders and flintlocks in the early days, but Piney could not understand the obsession of ordinary calm city citizens in firing automatic weapons upon small denizens of the forest.''
Piney strolls the scrub of Rural Retreat, Va., in a bright orange shirt that reads: ``DON'T SHOOT ME - I AIN'T NO DEER.''
Now those of us who do not reside in the mountains of the western part of the state can experience the invigorating sagacity of this alfresco Aesop in Piney Woods Philosopher by Bill Cobbs (Overmountain Press, 247 pp., $14.95), a compendium of sharply expressed enthusiasms, observations and irritations.
``Pigs,'' Piney has opined correctly, ``can be too smart for their own good.''
He has also castigated Florida for ``the constant heat, sun and monotony, for the outrageous taxes, the mediocre educational system, the polyglot and unrooted population.''
And Piney, who much prefers the literary output of Rex Stout, calls most of Ernest Hemingway's work ``junk reading.''
I called up the philosopher about that at the rustic general store he runs in Groseclose, on a back road off I-81.
``Hemingway,'' Piney informed me, ``had the same mental illness that makes people buy automatic weapons and hunt deer with 'em. They have a constant desire to prove their manhood because they worry about it. Hemingway worried about it all the time and wound up shooting himself at 63.''
Cobbs, 70 himself, doesn't worry one whit about his manhood. He's had three wives, and he's on good terms with all of them. The other two come and visit Bill and Rita, No. 3, at the old Lutheran parsonage where they live before a breathtaking valley view.
``It helps, of course,'' Cobbs notes of ongoing amity among spouses, ``to have money.''
He also has eight children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
This son of a country doctor and mountain teacher returned to the rugged turf of his youth five years ago after a wide-ranging existence elsewhere. The Roanoke College grad has lived in New York, Paris, London, Chicago, New Orleans and - uncomfortably - Florida. He has been, among other things, a textbook editor, a television producer, a headmaster and a government spy.
Readers of the columns collected in his new book will learn that Cobbs has been bitten by a rattlesnake in Lafourche Swamp and survived cancer. He almost drowned in Lake Michigan and was almost blown up by a rocket bomb in World War II. He attended Cordon Bleu cooking school in France and very nearly shot a night watchman in England.
You might say Piney's seen life.
So why has the world traveler confined himself to a rural corner of the country?
``It's a wonderful experience to find a mountain culture of people who are very bright, quick, full of humor and - above all - independent,'' he explained.
Cobbs believes the printed word will endure deep into the cybernetic 21st century:
``Newspapers furnished the need for news and advertisements and, perhaps most of all, a common bond for the community to recognize its unity. These needs - for information of the past, for entertainment in the present, and for education at all times, including the commonality of the community - were enduring and without limitation by such innovations as computers.''
You can confirm that by sending $14.95, plus $2 for mailing and handling, for a copy of Piney Woods Philosopher to Overmountain Press, 325 W. Walnut St., Johnson City, TN 37605. MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia
Wesleyan College. by CNB