Lamonte has lived all of his twelve years in Appalachia. He has never been outside of these mountains. In class, his assignment has been to write about his life. We corrected  some of the spelling and construction together. I enjoy working with Lamonte because he is so eager to learn. – Tim Barrus

I lived in a small town. It had a gun shop, a church, a post office, a bar,  a hardware store, and places I could not go into. 

I left that town. It was not the kind of town where you could have a pride celebration down Main because they would kill you. People tried to kill me many times. One time they shot at me from a car.

I had one friend. He was white. He was bigger than me. We went swimming in the lake. He picked me up and then he threw me into the lake. He was nice. I loved him. Then he went away. Everyone went away. I cannot go back there to that town or they will kill me.

By Lamonte