After so many strenuous walks, today was a mellow, relaxed stroll by comparison. After passing through central Clarksburg, a sizable town that was the home of Stonewall Jackson, I spent the bulk of the day in quiet countryside, low rippling hills still often flanking me on either side but rarely having much impact on the walk itself. After four hours of pavement, I was pleased to join the North Bend Rail Trail, which is grassy and soft, the gentlest of walking surfaces. It will be my companion for the better part of the next two days.
My primary break came in Salem, the most sizable town that I encountered along the walk, where I dropped by the IGA grocery to buy some snacks and assess the state of the panic. Around mid-day, at least, it was actually quite calm, though still no toilet paper. The clerk said Friday was the worst and it’s been getting incrementally better since then. Once everyone has sufficient toilet paper to build forts to hide in from the virus, I suppose they can dial back the hoarding.
The town itself has the unfortunate gap-tooth smile phenomenon, with whole buildings ripped out of its central main street, the sides of survivors still scarred by the separation. In the largest gap, a Dollar General has arisen, jarringly shiny in comparison. Houses in town vary dramatically, with some stately and impressive historic structures, some solidly built family homes with two cars out front, and some in a dramatic state of disrepair, with junk piled atop abandoned automobiles surrounding them. In a few cases, houses still stood despite significant charring, and sufficient activity around them made me wonder if they were still lived in.
By contrast, the walk ended in West Union, which features a quaint and compact historic core that is all the more striking given how well it has been preserved. The brick courthouse looms regally above the center, surveying its terrain and assuring order. Locals walk by with a purpose and smile pleasantly.
Within minutes of arrival, I was picked up by one of my hosts for the night, Sharon, who along with her husband Paul is the state coordinator for the ADT in West Virginia. She whisked me back to her house, got me situated, and soon enough we were back out the door for dinner.
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It may be the end of the world as we know it, but West Union feels fine. And Smithburg as well, I suppose, as we drove to the neighboring town for dinner. Sharon opted out of their typical WU diner because of my pesky dietary restrictions, in favor of a place with a few more options. She worried that this might result in her not having as many people to introduce me to at dinner, but all things are relative. Indeed, by dinner’s end I had met at least two dozen locals–extended family, friends, former students of Sharon’s, and so on–all eating in this one restaurant. At one point, our group of five had another group of seven gathered around our table, when the news flashed an update, with the federal government now advising that gatherings be limited to ten people max.
Nobody seems especially concerned. It’s more difficult to see the gravity when no cases have come into your community yet. Despite that, West Virginia schools are all closed, all sports canceled. Unlike my school, there can be no expectation of technological connectivity at home, so kids have some work packets to do, but there is going to be a ton of lost learning. And, of course, huge needs for child care. Sharon explained to me, though, that they’re working hard to at least meet the caloric needs of children in the district. The school cook is preparing sack breakfasts and lunches every morning, and then the bus drivers are taking these along their routes and delivering meals to the kids. In that way, at least, a small shred of normalcy is preserved.
After dinner, Sharon and Paul drove me up to see the new high school. West Union and Doddridge County are benefiting from an oil and gas boom, thanks to fracking. This has caused a surge in tax revenues; whereas the county’s budget was $3 million in 2009, it spiked to $15 million in 2019. The payoff is most visible in the high school, a stately structure positioned high on a hill overlooking the surrounding area, and stunning sports facilities. Despite being one of the poorest counties in West Virginia, Doddridge now has a school complex to be envied.
My heart stuck in my throat as I took this all in–the many pipeline projects I passed by along the walk, the giant new oil refining station that Paul pointed out to me, the ongoing extraction that is unfolding all through the area. I read Amity and Prosperity on the last walk, and one could find no more crushing entrypoint into the ongoing story of fracking in rural America. Even with that foreboding cloud, though, I found myself nodding enthusiastically for a project that could bring so much economic opportunity to a region with a close-knit community but few realistic hopes for development or transformation. And, to see that money invested into community resources, like schools, was encouraging.
Of course, the schools are sitting empty now. Those baseball and softball fields will lie unused this season. But the fracking goes on, unceasingly, without pause.
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After a couple of hours of conversation and some cake back at Sharon and Paul’s, I was off to bed, thinking about the overwhelmingly palpable sense of community that I encountered here in West Union and the degree to which that has morphed into a commodity that people pay for in other parts of the country. When families decide to enroll their kids at my school, it is often in pursuit of a deeply connected community. It comes with a cost. Of course, we’re increasingly learning about the even more dramatic cost of loneliness and disconnection.
There’s a huge risk that comes with swooping into a different place, experiencing it for a handful of days, and then trying to write something insightful about it. The process lends itself to generalities that are politely misrepresentative at best, offensive stereotypes at worst. West Virginia is a state with lots of challenges–perhaps as many as any other state in the country–and I won’t fall into the mistake of writing some drivel about how, despite a lack of material wealth, its residents have responded by drawing closer together, transforming a complex situation into some sappy, idealized state of nature. Things are challenging here.
And yet, people from my part of the country often approach places like West Virginia through a singular lens–a lost state in need of salvation from the more enlightened parts of the country. It’s an easy mindset to fall into from a distance, and I’ll even confess that there are times that being here can further reinforce that sort of attitude.
However, there are also aspects of life to be envied here, and none more so than the resilient communities that exist. I’ll remember the kids riding bikes together through Paw Paw, the teens going out fishing and UTV riding, the West Union schools rallying to get meals to all of the kids, and seemingly the whole community being out to dinner in the same restaurant. I’ll certainly remember the dozen different ways that Sharon is deeply invested in the life of her community.
There are some lessons the rest of the country should be looking to learn from West Virginia.
