This was fun to write... thought I'd share.

Photos event: https://flic.kr/s/aHsknAcLqz. What a great time!

Curious musings on West Virginia and Cosmic Induction...

My family street ran from Chesterfiled Ave's terminus, just across the tracks from the University, to the point where Quarry Creek finishes winding down from the mountain top. There, the Tuckers, Gunnoes and Atkins housed their newly married children--subdividing the lots that stretched from the valley floor's masonry walls up to where the mountain's steepness mocked attempts to build--so that each neighbor was also kin.

From a basement on the hill at 2333½, my five-year-old self swiveled the raised vinyl stool alongside my Uncle Bud as we explored the inner-workings of a stream of broken electronics. Between the multimeter's sweep and the oscilloscope's phosphorescence, his questions stoked the coals of my young mind before patiently explaining our observations and the phenomena behind them.

Having never gone to college, Uncle Bud was a tinkerer all his life. It probably started in high school when he opened the case of his prized 1960s Sony transistor radio. He received some engineering training in the Air Force during Vietnam, but most of his education came from the stacks of magazines that brimmed his oversized mail-box each month: National Geographic, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and various lesser-known technical publications.

“Reading those is worth more than any just about any college...” he'd always tell me.

We'd leave for Radio Shack as the truck's ever-present new-car smell overtook our faint scent of solder flux and contact cleaner--stopping on the way at the little white church on South Ruffner Road and donating our latest batch of newly repaired appliances.

The '80s were replacing the '70s and I was forced to leave behind the magic of our family street. Our neighbors and relatives aged and passed while the cold binary precision of a solid-state world rose to replace the warm crackling fuzziness of its analog predecessor. Time and creative destruction eventually consumed the family street with a medical center having rejoined and consumed those plots of individual hopes and terminated futures.

They say you can leave West Virginia, but it never leaves you. Markedly original, West Virginia was home to the coal wars, the largest and most organized US insurrection since the Civil War as exploited miners went on strike and fought off company agents who used machine guns and intimidation attempting to get them to return to labor conditions barely above slavery.

The miners' fight against being paid in "money" called company script accepted only at the company store and used to pay for company housing, where leaving the mine meant losing your home, gives us term “Redneck”. Mother Moses advised the striking miners in the 1920s to tie a red bandana to avoid shooting each other as they fought.

Eventually, US Troops intervened under the orders of Woodrow Wilson in an attempt to secure the continued flow of the coal required to project WWI US Naval might.

These battles are reenacted annually in Matewan, WV—a place also known as “Bloody Mingo”.

It's probably no wonder, then, that I awoke inexplicably at 5 am on a Sunday pondering the phenomenon and possible uses for cosmic induction following a Red-Bull-fueled marathon trip from Atlanta to West Virginia and back to participate in Bridge Day festivities.

Whether it was the familiar taste of a shaved-ham breakfast at Tudor's Biscuit World or rediscovering my redneck accent after being immersed in the nation's most earnest and friendly populace, I couldn't say. But this latest trip to West Virginia has inspired a bit of wonder, and now I'm inclined to spend a few hours researching this guy's failed Kickstarter and anything else I can find on the subject.

There's something life-affirming about becoming part of the tapestry of majestic mountainsides in various shades of green sprinkled with trees the autumnal colors of spiced gumdrops. While the sense of wonder that followed me home is likely not more important than college, feeding it seems a wonderful way to spend an early Sunday morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-uDPv7iQEo

 

Excellent job.

 

Thanks!

 

I don't know who you are but I live in Charleston and have my entire life. I have friends in Quarry Creek and on the short road called Grenada Way which is just off Chesterfield. This is very funny to read because we are bound to have crossed paths SOMEHOW. I'm Brent Hackney...rarely post here, have not road raced since about 2004 (I'm a dirt guy now).

 

I've been going to my mother in laws for 35 years now, about 20 miles from Glenville. I'll be heading over for Thanksgiving again to try my luck at the buck (not much luck involved here!). My college age kids love it so much that they do spring break with all their friends at grandma's. They all love G-Ma, she's an old hippy and can hang with the best of them. She built this herself with help from her hippy friends over the last 50 years. 200 acres of bliss, and one day it will be my wife's. But not anytime soon...her mom is too cool!

 

That looks stellar. All I see is singletrack potential all over that place. FYI, I live in the absolute best place on EARTH for singletrack riding. Thousands of acres that we literally treat like our own yard and have for decades. If you want to see what it looks like, see my youtube page. slickwv. We ride non stop, year round.

 

Interesting you suggest that...my son is a mountain biker and mainly a downhiller. He takes his Santa Cruz over there everytime we go and builds new trails. Here he is taking a jump over something he built.

 

Nice to meet you Brent! Jason Rosso--I went to school at Richmond Elm in S. Chas, Kanawah Elm, Chamberlain, Winfield and the gifted program at the school in town by the dairy. Uncle Bud used to drive the Walker truck with the boom that parked up the hill. It was house ensconced with elaborate stone mason walls. I helped build them build it. There's a pic from the time of this story that shows their old porch and Maw Maw's house down the hill.

He worked at Cecil I. Walker in Belle from the time he got back form Germany in Vietnam till he passed in 2003. Their living room picture window framed the capitol building perfectly. Still have some removed relatives on that mtn top.

My WERA/WV connection is even crazier than that... Christian157 came back from boarding school about the same time as went to live FL. We spoke, he was college roommates with all of my good Winfield friends from the basketball and track teams.

It's pretty funny, I have a new company and this morning I'm making calls about possibly setting up some kind of tech center near a college campus, I've been trying to get it pointed toward WVU. Mountain Power, baby!

 

That is just GORGEOUS! Nothing cooler than a mountain granny! I'd venture to be she knows where to find the good branch lettuce and their usual nearby spirits!

 

In the 80's she got popped by the helicopter police for growing it!

They just dug it up and gave her a slap on the wrist...seeing that she's an old granny

 

Ha, branch lettuce is a weed that grows where the creek runs deep, meaning a lot of water, it's GREAT with bacon--kind of like swiss chard. The spirits, well, they begin as corn and end up as elation!

But, I must say, DAMN I love your granny's house--I can feel the heat from the black wood burning stove from here... She's got one of those, right, she absolutely must.

 

Might look further down 79, Fairmont-Bridgeport-Clarksburg might be pretty good areas as well.

 

Thanks, I've haven't lived in the area for ages, but once a West Virginian... It does feel pretty awesome selling the big city on WV...

 

I'd be honored to have you as a 12th cousin. You buy the first round:up:

And sorry trance, I'm a city boy and branch lettuce has a whole different meaning to us

 

Haha, I'm pretty much city myself until I get back in the WV, then I don't know who the hell I sound like. I can't post the video, obviously, but when you've a chance google "This is the Last Damn Run of Likker I'll Ever Make". It'll get you up to speed!