Once again, I popped across the Potomac to spend the night in West Virginia. This section of the C&O is much like the first, with almost nothing interrupting the tranquility of the towpath. Fortunately, there was one stopping point right near the middle of the walk, Bill’s Place in Little Orleans, so I was grateful to find it open.
Bill’s Place is a long-standing dive in what could maybe best be described as a Maryland holler, as the culture here feels increasingly closer to WV than what I encountered during earlier stages in Maryland. (Indeed, I am struck by how wildly diverse Maryland is as a consequence of this walk.) I was the only patron in a joint that is equipped to serve dozens, aside from one man hunched over the bar, nursing a beer. Three staffers alternated between similar perches at the bar and occasional errands. The older woman at the counter employed her words judiciously, operating with an efficiency that I might have read as suspicion on another day. Gradually, as she shuffled off to cook, the two other men warmed up and started asking questions and offering advice, including a handy short-cut I could follow.
Nonetheless, the general quiet afforded me the chance to take in the bar’s interior, which shows the many years of gradual accumulation. The entire ceiling is lined by dollar bills, signed by past patrons. A sticker advises customers to spend their money quickly, before the Democrats do it.The back walls are lined with grocery supplies, a country store of sorts to spare locals a longer drive. A confederate flag hangs from the front corner. Dan would later tell me that Bill’s Place is indeed the place in the summer, occasionally filled with biker gangs and with a pig roasting on a barbeque outside. Today, it seemed all but forgotten.
Not long after I returned to the C&O, I was met by Dan, who would be putting me up for the night at his simple B&B in Paw Paw. He is a trail monitor for the parks service on the C&O, riding the towpath daily to make sure all’s well. He brought out some extra water for me, which was much appreciated on a long stretch without resupply, and even some strawberries.
My final approach to Paw Paw brought me through the Paw Paw Tunnel, a big highlight on this part of the walk. I had read about it, I had seen pictures of it, but man, I did not appreciate just how long it is–damn near a kilometer! Just as I reached it, the composition of the trail changed dramatically. Gone was the solitude, replaced by a long string of families out for a Sunday stroll. The kids whooped and laughed as they slowly progressed, one warning me that there was a scary clown ahead. When I finally emerged into the light, the temperature suddenly jumping a good 20 degrees, I saw a pack of kids on their bikes storming along the towpath, along with even more small groups.
Later that night, Dan would tell me that he appreciates this quality in Paw Paw — for all of its decline, for its inevitable characterization as a “used-to-be” town, it’s a strong community with lots of kind people, Christians “who really live the faith.” He acknowledges that it does have its struggling members, facing addiction and assorted other demons, but they are mostly concentrated across the tracks, on the outskirts. Dan came to Paw Paw following retirement, after growing up in Scranton, PA, where his father had worked for Capitol Records. Capitol had sought to capitalize on the exciting new cassette tape technology by building a factory there. It’s also, of course, closed now.
We talked politics for a while, though Dan noted that he generally avoids doing so with others around him. “When people want to talk politics,” he said, “they generally have their minds made up and want to change yours.” There’s no give-and-take. They get their politics from one source and then look to impose them on others. Nonetheless, he gets Trump’s appeal out here. “Have you read Hillbilly Elegy?” he asked. In his view, it explains the entire phenomenon quite well.
Hillbilly Elegy, by this point, has moved through the full arc of the spotlight, first receiving widespread popular acclaim and then a withering blowback, from people asserting that it’s a reductivist narrative masking a bootstrapping, self-reliance narrative that disregards the wider systemic forces holding people in Appalachia back. Some of that criticism comes from Appalachians themselves, but more of it seems to come from liberal-minded folks on the outside looking in, sensitive to anything that whiffs of stereotyping. To the extent that I’ve been able to discuss it with people in the middle of America–and that’s still a very small window of exposure–it seems like the book could best be described as a descriptive success and a prescriptive mixed-bag. Vance’s story is his own, but it resonates with many from this area. It conveys a deeper truth. Are his recommendations for combating the problems credible? That’s more complicated, but those are also a relatively small portion of the book.
In any case, I should have more opportunities to explore this in the days ahead. While I’ll cross back into Maryland tomorrow morning, it’ll be for the last time. By mid-day I’ll be fully committed to West Virginia for a while.
