Almost Heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze
* * *
Last Sunday I told you about my first walkabout in Shepherdstown. December 1974. It was love at first sight. I settled in. I was happy. I called and told my mother. She wept. Not for joy.
What’s wrong, Mom?
I can’t believe that with all your education you’d want to live in West Virginia.
(My mother was born in Alabama and raised in Georgia. She left school after the eighth grade. She thought well-educated people were also “cultured” people. And she believed a college degree would take you anywhere you wanted to go. So why would I want to go to West Virginia of all places?)
That was the first time I was poignantly conscious of West Virginia’s national reputation as backward—shoeless, toothless, hopeless hillbillies.
If it helps, Mom, think of me as a missionary to these people.
(My mother admired missionaries who sacrificed comfort and safety to save the lost.)
Okay, she said. That helps.
Call me naive, but it had never occurred to me that one state might think itself superior to another. I was an American, not an Ohioan. And then I heard about Vermont over New Hampshire, Texas over New Mexico, and Virginia over West Virginia.
Knowing what others thought of us West Virginians made me a little defensive. And, at times, offensive.
So, you moved here from New Jersey, did you? Social climber, eh?
It shouldn’t matter where you’re from; it should only matter who you are. But still, if you’re visiting elsewhere and mention that you’re from West Virginia, you’ll notice a slight twinge of befuddlement.
Really? West Virginia?
Yes. World-renowned West Virginia. And what world-renowned state, pray tell, are you from?
Paula and I went around the world in late 2001. We visited 10 countries. In each country, people typically knew of only four states: New York (Statue of Liberty), Florida (Disney World), California (Hollywood), and West Virginia (“Country Roads”).
We heard “Country Roads” sung exuberantly in all 10 countries.
Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong, WEST VIRGINIA, MOUNTAIN MAMA, take me home, country roads.
West Virginia.
It’s wild. It’s wonderful. It’s home.
You’re welcome to visit and stay a while—as long as you check any delusional superiority at the border.
* * *
Next Sunday: What Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s wife said to me about West Virginia during a highbrow wedding reception in 1991.
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Featured photographs by Paula Tremba
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I never ask anyone where they are from. If they are from West Virginia, they will let you know. If they are not from West Virginia, I do not want to embarrass them.
Sitting on top of another beautiful mountain in here West Virginia, (2 different ones in a week), I am in awe of the natural wonders here.
I grew up in the flatlands of Wisconsin, and was so blessed to meet my friend Terry, who lured me here with song & poetry…& I’ve never been more grateful for this simple twist of fate.
Country Roads, indeed! My prescription for living the good life – driving down these country roads, & singing that song over & over as requested when we visited England as a Morris Dance Team twice in the 90’s…
An old friend David Robinson, Chief of Cardiology at NIH, lived in Shepherdstown. He loved it here. And his philosophy about the digs & quips & snooty attitude he got from those who didn’t know West by God Virginia any better was:
All the better to keep them away – I call it “snob repellent”.
Thanks for my Sunday morning cuppa Jo for the mind & heart – (we were off line last week – no reception; unplugged…).
I’m a Virginia boy from not too far away. It was my good fortune to fall in love with a California expatriate who also chose to live in W.Va. because “it was a green place and the people were helpful and friendly.” The Mountain State afforded me safe haven, a place of refuge, a place to finally make a stand. In these fraught political days, I’ve certainly got good reason to be more than a little bit miffed and out of sorts with my adopted home, now the reliably Republican, MAGA loving state it has become. But that’s all in the family. Don’t let any high-browed outsiders criticize West Va. or otherwise look down their long, aristocratic noses at us. We might squabble and gripe among ourselves, but don’t let any folks “from off” to jump into our family feud. That’s when you step on the fighting side of me. (Verbally that is.)
I like looking for those country roads untouched by malls, McMansions and multi lane highways.
A wise person said ‘everyone has to have someone to look down on.’ Maybe that’s all it is. Recalling the snarky comments I got as a recent arrival to Northern Virginia from North Carolina years ago, same thing. Maybe things are different there now that 3 million people from “away” are there. Myself, never did I ever in my worst nightmare or best dream, think I would end up in West by God. Just glad. Really glad.
I think John Denver’s song describes the beauty of WVA. Every state has gorgeous scenic areas. In 2004, when I worked with teachers of English at the edge of the Gobi in Inner Mongolia, the teachers who could speak English best were people who listened to songs in English, and the favorite song, Almost Heaven, West Virginia! We sang it in our classes at least a couple of times a week!
The “location-as-superior-place” syndrome is not confined to West Virginia stereotypes. On the day I moved as an elementary student from my Atlanta neighborhood to the Philly suburbs, my “best” friend condemned me as “a Yankee” (as I was born in New Jersey). Moving into my Philly suburb, I was perceived as “not Yankee enough” and my sister, then in high school, was told by her academic advisor that she would “never make it to college” because she attended “inferior Southern schools.” Yet she graduated with honors. When my career changed and I later moved into a college town (Frostburg, Maryland), from the Philly area, a friendly administrator remarked, “Ah, so this is a step up for you!”
Suffice it to say, I am simply grateful to be located in a place called Mother Earth. That location transcends stereotypes, school districts and states, yet includes them all. Maybe heeding the words of Ernest Hemingway would be a better route for us: “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self.”
I love living where the country is two blocks away, where laid back is a virtue others call lazy, where biscuits and gravy is culinary art, where folks not only speak on the street but stop and talk Thanks for this, Randy.
I spent 35 years of my life at 37,000 ft. as a Flight Attendant with United Airlines. When I transferred from San Francisco to Washington DC, my California friends thought, well ok, so she wants to fly Europe. Makes sense. When I shared with them I was buying a house in West Virginia, they suggested I find a psychiatrist!! Long story short, this state has offered me years of food for my wandering spirit. Open spaces, mountains for hiking, waters for kayaking and an incredible community of new found friends. I’ve made my share of not so wise decision’s in my life, but moving to “Almost Heaven West Virginia”….well I knew I was finally home.
I grew up in NY just a short distance (30 miles) up the Hudson River from NYC. What an idyllic place it was, unfortunately no more. I started to come to WV in 1980 while working on my PhD on a project funded by that new federal fruit lab in Kearneysville. Then after graduation in 1983 wound up moving here what I thought would be for 2 years (the length of a postdoctoral position) but instead have called it home ever since. I also knew that if I was going to live here and raise a family it would have to be in Shepherdstown. In all honesty, however, I used to jokingly tell everyone I lived in Southern New England, or right near DC, or next to Maryland or Virginia. When we first moved here I also thought that everyone did their grocery shopping at 7-11 stores. How, WV and Jefferson County has changed. We benefitted from a powerful Senator Byrd who brought many facilities, infrastructure, and jobs to the Eastern Panhandle. It has been an idyllic place to live and raise a family, much like that fruit farming area I grew up in north of NYC. Upstate NY suffers from a high level of poverty, just like many parts of WV. Our politicians have and continue to let us down. WV is amazingly beautiful, We need to work hard to maintain its strength and beauty as it grows. So grateful to our new generation of young politicians.
My “moving to WV story” starts in St Louis where the doctor who had just delivered our child was aghast to hear we were going to live in WV. “They don’t have doctors! You’ll all get black lung disease!”
On one of the European tours I led, I opened the doors to a Munich beer hall as the oompah band broke into Country Roads and all the patrons rose and hoisted their steins and robustly sang every word. My 50 tour members to this day think I arranged that just for them.
Thanks, Randy, for your Sunday thoughts—and now daily musings—as well as your regular contributors. I love reading your thoughts and it never fails to remind me of how lucky I am to have landed in Shepherdstown.
Stewart and I have common (good word to describe us both) backgrounds and the sidewalk conversations come natural to us and are greatly valued. A
There are very real differences from State to State. It’s not where you are “from” but what I have been aware of over years in Social Services is the culture. It is the geographical isolation, lack of education and inability to travel, and lack of career opportunities. The hills and hollers trap our people . Generations of poverty remain. The kind, interesting citizens of my chosen home consistently provide the foundation of our State coming in “last” consistently, and “first” consistently in poverty driven categories. Reality is not snobbery. Your choice to tell Mom you would be a Missionary indicates that you understood that you wanted to be a change-maker. She accepted your intelligence in helping to make change. I love our diverse, distinct culture. Last and First.
Randy, thanks for your message about WV
I grew up in WV, studied and worked in Shepherdstown before heading to CO to work on a PhD. I met a young lawyer lady in Denver and we moved to Aspen over 40 year ago. The year before John Denver died in a plane crash, we had Thanksgiving dinner with him and his family. He shared how he helped write Country Roads. John was visiting songwriter Bill Danoff in DC. Bill shared the song with John and asked him to help finish it. John drove up WV, set down on Jefferson’s Rock in Harper’s Ferry and the rest is history. Country Roads was sung at John’s memorial, everyone knew the words and everyone should know the beauty that is WV.
Wow, this is awesome! Thank you SO much!
We lived in a hundred cities while installing museum collections, and never found anything even approximating the Eastern Panhandle for quality of life. This is home.
My mother cried the night I boarded the red-eye from San Francisco International Airport to National to pursue/test/try out a relationship with a young man who happened to be a Presbyterian minister. “It’s all hillbillies living there,” she said. I never heeded her warning or worry. Married that young minister, and raised our three kids here. My mom visited many times and eventually moved to West Virginia. She loved the easy life style and the many friends she made.
Looks like Dolly Sods, where we’ve camped lots of times!?
It is!
I’ve heard that “Country Roads” is the best/most known song in the world. When we visited my brother in Indonesia, troubadours sang it to us n the beach.
Love it!