Just lovely. Wonderful writing. Thank you for bringing West Virginia's back roads into my living room. Julie Matthews Burnette -----Original Message----- From: J. Wiley <[email protected]> To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Date: Friday, October 23, 1998 11:05 PM Subject: Driving those back roads >After a trip east and south (into West Virginia, Pennsylvania, >Maryland, Virginia, and back through West By God) I got home to a >couple hundred e-mails, including one from a lister her about >searching for a cemetery in the back roads of the Mountain State. >I know she meant no slur (I really mean that) but I have to add a >note about my own experiences on those back roads. > >Thirty-some years ago, I took my new wife and baby son "back down >home" to West Virginia, to show her where my daddy was from, to >give her some idea of what she'd married into, though it was too >late to back out, what with the little one in her lap and all. I >had vague recollections of where my dad had taken me on a few >trips before he'd died, and how to get there. But we made it, >back to where he was born, where his father and mother and baby >sister were buried on a hilltop where two dirt roads converged. >There, too, was the home of my third grade teacher, and a few >cousins. Why is it, you get to such a place, and though you were >born and raised some hours and miles away, it "feels" like home? >Could it be the people, the generations of experience mingled >with the dust and mud and trees and fields? > >I showed my wife, "There's the house where my dad and I stayed >the night when we visited, a cousin of some sort. Really nice >folks! That was the 'switchboard room' there at the corner of the >house, when they brought telephones into the area." Those cousins >directed us to other friends and cousins, folks who were first >cousins of my dad, and who would remember all the old folks and >all the old stories. Uncle Arch lived just a few miles off, not >more than fifteen minutes away, they said, and told us how to get >there. Well, in the hills, if you don't know the area, no way >it's fifteen minutes away, not the way I drive those mountain >roads. > >We stopped at a gas station/grocery store on a mountain top, >where the screen door slammed and kept the flies outside, where >two good ol' boys were drinking long-necked Stroh's out front. >"Arch Wiley? Hell, yes we know him! He was the mailman for thirty >years! Not more than fifteen minutes down this here road. You >take this here road about a mile (it was always "about a mile") >and take the first right, and…) We kept doing that, taking the >first right, and asking folks where Arch Wiley's house was. After >an hour, we stopped at a house "up on stilts" in a creek valley >and asked again for Arch Wiley's house. The folks (the whole >family) who came out on the porch said it was just down the road. >The "big white house just down the road." > >Right. We'd been doing that for an hour. But, sure enough, about >a mile farther on, there was a modest, two-story white frame >house, with morning glories and honeysuckle climbing up the porch >bannisters, and the sweetest lady in the world who greeted us. We >had found my dad's cousins. They told us it was a wonder that the >folks down the road had told us the truth. Just the week before >the sheriff had stopped by their house in pursuit of someone, >that the folks in the house on stilts had told them that the >folks the sheriff was after had just gone down the road, raising >dust and going like a bat outta hell. Hadn't been anyone down >that road all week except us. > >We had the most pleasant visit with my dad's cousins, so long and >enjoyable that we forgot the time. They gave us supper and milk >for our baby's bottle, and just before dark we had to leave, to >find our way back to Wheeling and then back home. But we left >with memories and names and locations of other cousins, and my >wife's most striking memory of the trip was how wonderful the >people - everyone - were to us. > >Thirty years, and many more trips later, and our memories and >experiences remain much the same, only better. The landscape is >one God took His good time making, and the people much the same. >That's the only place on the earth I can imagine where we'd stand >on a hill at sunset, and as we watched the colors changes from >green to blazing oranges and reds, hear a lone bagpiper on a hill >a mile off playing, for no one but himself and God, and the >sounds of "Amazing Grace" and "Scotland the Brave" would float >over on the breezes to us. > >Anyplace you want to get to in West Virginia will take some time, >but if you take the time, it's worth it. And if you pull over and >park your car and talk to the folks, you'll meet kinfolk, or >people who know your kin, and you'll be better for it. At least, >that's been my experience. > >Jim Wiley > > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > >James Wiley, AKA: [email protected] > >______________________________