The Sap’s A Risin’

I haven’t received a decent love letter in years.

Before readers assume I have just thrown my husband under the bus, let me clarify. As a high school English teacher, I used to celebrate the discovery of at least a few passionate, devotional love letters left errant on my classroom floor every year. These were prime opportunities to provide tangible examples of how and why to employ proper grammar.

With great joy, I would transcribe the text for my students (of course never disclosing names) and ask the class to suggest corrections or enhancements. Imagine pledging your unwavering affection to your 15-year-old soulmate only to realize that you have ended your declaration with a preposition. True. They never cared too much either, but I was highly amused. Unfortunately, thanks to prolific usage of cell phones, texting, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, I do not get the “good stuff” anymore. However, I try to remember that this blight is merely another transition in the long life of mountain courting, a practice that we become even more cognizant of this time of year.

Spring is a dynamic season for these bountiful mountains and generative valleys. Green shoots of floral promise skim mulch beds just as wildlife uncurls from its cradle. We emerge from our own hot cocoa-induced slumber ready to exercise, clean, and even love. On the heels of Valentine’s Day idealism, spring is prime season for courting.

Since finding our true love comes with neither an instruction manual nor matching heart-shaped lockets, we are resigned to engage in a series of prescribed, normalized rehearsals called dating, or as our ancestors have called it for centuries, “courtin’.” In his 2006 guide, The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart, Willie Nelson reminds us that “99 percent of the world’s lovers are not with their first choice. That’s what makes the jukebox play.” The act of courtin’ itself is not simply a means to end, but a ritual of entertainment in itself—and quite a public ritual at that.

While current social norms are changing, wooing has long included the seeking of approval, both from the one being wooed and the parents of the intended woo-ee. One must declare his (as is the custom) intentions prior to the first public outing. Public approval does not end there, of course.

As Jessica Hager explained in her 2011 article in this magazine, “Love and Marriage in Appalachia,” young men often carried on a Welsh tradition of gifting an intended fiancée with a carved wooden spoon: a love spoon. This spoon was frequently adorned with specific symbols such as Celtic knots or wheels. The gift symbolized an unending ability to provide for his intended bride, not to mention proof of his wood-crafting skills for this future in-laws’ discernment.

While we recognize the wedding ring as the most common symbol of infinite commitment, golden bands have not always been affordable. My own mother is rumored to have given my own father an ultimatum: “Either we get married or I am buying a car.” They did both eventually, but delayed the exchange of expensive rings (she wearing a modest opal) for a number of years, using their savings instead to “buy dirt” as my father describes their first land purchase. The same is even more common of earlier Appalachian families. Love spoons and wedding ring quilts appear to have stood as placeholders for such offerings, though quilts were more likely gifts from family members or friends, not the spouse.

The Cherokee have a similar custom of adorning a new couple with a quilt—in this case, a solid white blanket. While the couple begin the ceremony with each wearing a blue blanket, their unity is sanctioned by the removal of these separate covers and their joining as one under the white blanket.

There are probably no courting practices more public than those dating from the American colonies through the Victorian period: bundling and joggling boards. In Courtship, Sex, and the Single Colonist, Andrew G. Gardner explains the biblical origins of the bundling board and bundling sack, referencing the story of Ruth and Boaz’s premarital night together spent on the floor of a threshing room. Bundling boards are as they sound, a large plank separating the two lovebirds in the woman’s shared bed; while a bundling sack functioned like a two-sided sleeping bag.

Though the premise for such a seemingly liberal practice was to determine the couple’s true compatibility, there were also very specific guidelines for such an intimate exercise. The woman’s parents would be nearby in their own bedroom, there would be no physical contact, and all underclothes were to be kept on. There is surely nothing more communally awkward than a first-date sleepover with mom and pop. Joggling benches are a hybrid of a wooden bench, rocking, chair, and porch swing found commonly in the Southern city of Charleston, South Carolina. The bench is pliable and its footing allows the sitter to subtly bounce while seated. It became rumored custom for couples to begin their courtship at either end of the bench and then slowly make their way closer as the bench’s motion naturally drew them together.

Unfortunately, not only for myself, but for humankind, a group of teens recently taught me a new term that they felt essential for inclusion into my vocabulary: “Netflix and chill.” It sounds more harmless than it apparently is, but what’s most interesting about the concept is that from a tradition of “spin the bottle” and “post office,” courtin’ or dating has evolved into a casual blurred-line of shared space. The bundling boards and joggling benches have been exchanged for dually occupied love seats and online message boards. The new circular symbols of infinity are DVDs. Willie’s jukebox has been supplanted by a carefully curated iTunes playlist.

One might be tempted to proclaim the end to true romance with such informal, high-tech courtship practices infiltrating future generations of courters, but if we dig below the surface, not much has changed. Public declarations of commitment—in this case Facebook relationship statuses—still abound. Handcrafted gifts of assurance are exchanged in the form of iPhone passcodes. And, if love is true (or at least for the moment), the community will approve of the union with a thumbs-up emoji.