West Virginia

Superfluous 7…..Things West Virginians Like

My favorite morning drive DJ recently made reference to a website that had posted a list of 10 things that West Virginians love. And while their list is not necessarily inaccurate, I just find it kind of odd and uninteresting. So, since I just happen to have a forum to express my thoughts & ideas, I think I can do better. Therefore, in honor of my home state of West Virginia’s 149th birthday, I humbly present…..

 

from the home office in Huntington, WV (home of my alma mater & The Thundering Herd!!)…..

 

The Superfluous 7 Things West Virginians Like:

 

 

7       Pittsburgh, PA & The Carolinas

Pittsburgh is only a couple of hours away from most folks in the northern half of the state and it’s the nearest place where one can find culture and great shopping. Plus it’s the home of the Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates. Places like Charlotte, Raleigh, Hilton Head, and Greenville are where everyone flees to for gainful employment once they graduate college after having taken advantage of cheap in-state tuition, and every West Virginian has to vacation at Myrtle Beach atleast once in their life. I’m pretty sure that’s decreed somewhere in The Bible.

 

 

6       Hot Dogs w/everything (ketchup, mustard, onions, & chili)
Unlike other parts of the country where it is a mortal sin to put ketchup on hot dogs, here in West Virginia we full embrace the concept. Hot dog chili is NOT the same thing as the chili one eats with a spoon on a cold winter’s evening. There are no beans in hot dog chili!! Cole slaw is an acceptable though uncommon condiment, but we’re not really relish or sauerkraut people.

 

 

5       Don Knotts, Soupy Sales, Mary Lou Retton, Jerry West, Peter Marshall, Kathy Mattea, Stonewall Jackson, John Kruk, David Selby, “Hot Rod” Hundley, Sam Huff, Homer Hickam, Nick Saban, Gunner Gatski, Lou Holtz, Lawrence Kasdan, John Corbett, Red Sovine, Bob Denver, Joyce Dewitt, Jennifer Garner, TD Jakes, Brad Paisley, and Randy Moss

The vast majority of West Virginians over the age of 35 would easily be able to identify this group of actors, athletes, singers, and other sundry luminaries as natives of our state. Most folks under the age of 35 wouldn’t be able to tell you who the hell ¾ of them even are. FYI…infamous criminal nutjob Charles Manson lived in WV as a child, but we try to keep that on the down low.

 

 

4       Pickup Trucks, Cheap Beer, & Cigarettes

It’s the ultimate redneck triumvirate!! It is WV Man Law that every guy must own a pickup truck atleast once in his life. I am currently in the process of fulfilling my obligation. And no matter how long some people have been unemployed or struggling to feed their children they will always manage to afford their $30 carton of cigarettes and $20 case of Natural Light.

 

 

3       Sucking the government teat

Welfare, food stamps, HUD, SSI. Generations of West Virginians have found a way to get around that whole work thing by just sitting on their lazy hump and waiting for the monthly entitlement check to arrive in the mail. Thank you Democrat Party.

 

 

2       WalMart

I have to give credit where credit is due…Sam Walton was a mastermind. Sure most every product is probably made by 8 year olds in Indonesian sweatshops making 3 cents/week, but that means that the fantastic savings are passed on to us…the American consumer!! And the place has everything!! Where else can one purchase a can of motor oil, a 50/50 cotton-rayon blend Hawaiian shirt, some buckshot, a jar of Miracle Whip, and the entire Harry Potter DVD collection all under one roof, then get a haircut and buy a new pair of prescription sunglasses on the way out?? I’ll tell you where…nowhere. Pure genius.

 

 

1       Country Roads

It doesn’t matter that John Denver was from Colorado, that the lyrics of the song (Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River) clearly refer to landmarks in the state of Virginia, or that the songwriters themselves once stated that the road that inspired them is in Maryland…West Virginians have latched onto this song like Lindsay Lohan in a crack house and made it the unofficial state anthem.

 

 

 

 

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You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone: An Ode to Moms

When I was a kid I had a teddy bear. His name was Teddy, because evidently my imagination hadn’t quite kicked in yet. I can’t exactly remember the details, but I think my great Aunt Garnet got him for me when I was about 4 years old. At any rate, Teddy was my constant companion in times of fear, like when a big ol’ thunderstorm would roll in. Yes, I can admit it now…I wasn’t exactly a mini Chuck Norris growing up. I had to have Teddy by my side every night, clutching him in my nightly slumber like the prized possession that he was. Over time his original outfit got all tore up, and all of his little paws got torn off…not due to anything sadistic I did, but just because of wear & tear. Fortunately my Grandma Pigott was a wiz with needle, thread, & a sewing machine, and she performed many a cosmetic surgery on Teddy. I probably kept him a little bit too long (if you know what I’m saying), but eventually the time did come when my smoldering machismo started to kick in and I knew it was no longer cool to sleep with a stuffed animal. I guess the transition wasn’t too traumatic, since it isn’t really etched into my memory like so many other life events. I look back on my time with Teddy and smile, appreciating that small chunk of my childhood…but I can honestly say I don’t yearn deeply to somehow hop in the ol’ DeLorean time machine and bring him back.

 

It is a far different thought process when it comes to my Mom.

 

I’m not a big fan of Mother’s Day, for kind of the same reasons why I loathe Valentine’s Day. VD (ha!!) is a pretty pointless holiday when one is single, and only serves as a gloomy reminder that, for some reason, I am not cool enough, hot enough, or rich enough to satisfy the shallow needs of the average 21st century woman. Similarly, Mother’s Day is a melancholy reminder of what I have lost.

 

Nearly 13 years ago…on a temperate February night…my Mom slipped away. I was living at home at the time, and I still remember it well. The 911 call…my Dad’s worried look…the fire department & paramedics working on her. She held on for a few days in a vegetative state, and what will haunt me for the rest of my life are her eyes, tears flowing, as she apparently understood everything that was happening but couldn’t speak. Mom had a living will and did not want to be kept alive by machines for more than a few days, so eventually my Dad had to make the tough decision to honor her wishes and have her taken off life support. She was 52 years old, but had been in poor health for two decades, including having a lung removed due to lung cancer 5 years earlier. At the end her heart simply wore out. The day we buried her was an unusually sunny, warm day at the end of February. I wrote a letter that was placed in her casket, and I’d like to think she read it once she got settled in up in Heaven.

 

I realize that I was blessed in many ways. I had my mother until I was 27 years old. I got to spend every day of the last five years of her life living in the same home. Since she’d had so many health problems for such a long time there was a tacit understanding that it was unlikely she’d live to be wished a triple digit happy birthday by the weather guy on the Today show, so there was a subconscious preparedness. And most of all I was blessed to have been raised, taught, taken care of, and loved by an amazingly strong, kind, and selfless child of God. I have always said and will continue to say that any positive traits I may occasionally display are entirely due to the way I was raised by my parents.

 

Having said that, I must also concede that every day of the past 12+ years has been…different. The old cliché is that “time heals all wounds”. I’m not sure that is completely true. I sometimes feel…with all due respect to our men & women in uniform…like a soldier that has been wounded, that even though life moves forward and I do what must be done on a daily basis there will always be a scar and a noticeable limp. It’s just that my scar & limp aren’t manifested physically. I do not say that to elicit any sympathy. Not at all. I am forthright for two reasons. First because I know that my feelings aren’t unique. Lots of people have experienced loss. Many many people will “celebrate” this Mother’s Day not by buying a present for or taking out to eat their very much alive mother, but by visiting a gravesite or shedding a tear. Secondly, I wish to give a friendly nudge to those whose mothers are still on this Earth. When my Mom died one of the most overwhelming emotions I experienced was the desire to be able to talk to her just one more time. I could not…still cannot…remember the last thing I said to her. It haunts me, even though I wrote that letter. So if your mother is still around, call her. Visit her. Give her a hug & kiss. Tell her you love her. One certainly cannot go around thinking in morbid terms like “this may be the last time I ever see you”. That’d drive a person nuts. However, I would recommend keeping the thought somewhere in the subconscious. If nothing else it is good motivation to be good to people and not act like a complete idiot.

 

As for Mother’s Day…I try not to let my own gloominess affect others’ appreciation of the event. Mother’s Day was actually founded in my home state of West Virginia, just about a half hour down the road in Grafton, by Anna Jarvis in 1914. Therefore I suppose I should feel a bit of home state pride. And of course the whole idea behind the holiday is splendid. Mothers should be recognized & celebrated for all they do. In 21st century America we have been conditioned by equal rights, women’s’ liberation, and the near economic necessity for two incomes to not revere motherhood as a job in & of itself. But I suspect that if modern mothers would compare notes with their maternal ancestors the conclusion would be that, despite the wonders of technology, amazing advances in medicine, and evolving societal norms, it’s still as tough a gig now as it was then. So kudos to all the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, etc. out there that have ever raised a child or are in the process of doing so. We live in a world with many pitfalls, temptations, and opportunities to royally screw up. Your child may not grow up to be rich, famous, or successful by the world’s definition, but if you help them navigate the many twists & turns of life without too much collateral damage, instill some good values & morals, and guide them toward being a reasonably productive member of society then I don’t think it is unreasonable to set aside one day a year to say “job well done”.

 

 

 

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Adios Joe Paterno

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

–       Edmund Burke

 

When a hot topic arises that I feel compelled to address in this forum I try to do so in a timely manner. However, there are occasions when it takes a bit for my thoughts to gel together. I have learned to go with the flow rather than go off half-cocked and let emotion get the best of my senses…atleast most of the time.

 

As a kid growing up in northcentral West Virginia and a WVU Mountaineer fan, I always hated Penn State. The Nittany Lions were among the nation’s elite college football programs and one of West Virginia’s biggest rivals. Unfortunately it was pretty one sided, with the Mountaineers only winning 2 games against their foes in my lifetime. A 1984 upset victory broke a 25 year WVU losing streak in the rivalry and is still considered one of the most memorable moments in Old Gold & Blue history.

 

The annual matchup came to an end after 1992 because Penn St. joined the Big Ten, and over time my stance softened. Coach Joe Paterno became an elder statesman, the kind of old guy that one tends to root for because it’d be nice to see him “go out on top”. I’m a sucker for those kind of stories, like when John Elway won the Super Bowl and was named MVP in his last game or when Ted Williams hit a home run in his final at bat (although that happened before I was born). Alas, such a storybook ending was not in store for college football’s all-time winningest coach. Not by a long shot.

 

Several weeks ago a firestorm erupted when former long-time Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was arrested for allegedly molesting atleast 9 young boys dating back as far as 1994. That is bad enough and Sandusky will have his day in court eventually, but the issue was complicated by implications that Paterno and other university officials had been alerted about Sandusky’s…activities…especially on one specific occasion in 2003. The story is that apparently Paterno was told by another assistant coach, reported the incident to his athletic director, and then took no further action. He did not call law enforcement, nor did he follow up with his bosses (the AD and school president). The accusation is that Joe Paterno…the most powerful chief in his little kingdom…did the bare minimum then went on his merry way without really confronting the issue, choosing instead to bury his head in the sand in a misguided effort to protect the reputation of his school and his football program.

 

Legendary college basketball coach John Wooden once advised to “be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” Taking that up several notches, 1 Chronicles 28:9 says “The Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts.” No one knows what really went through Joe Paterno’s head or heart except God, and that must sorted out between the two of them. However, Paterno has had to deal with this pesky little thing we call the court of public opinion, and it’s a battle that he seems to have lost handily. One of my Undeniable Truths of Life is that perception is reality and reality is perception, and the perception is that Coach Paterno chose the heretofore untainted reputation of his football team ahead of the safety of children, and that has angered a lot of people.

 

Two things need to be noted at this point. First of all, one of the reasons my dislike of Penn State football dissipated as I matured was the general belief, held by most fans, that Paterno and Penn St. were one of the few programs that were aboveboard and unblemished. In a world beset by cheating scandals of all shapes & sizes over the last few decades they seemed beyond reproach and were highly respected for conducting business the right way & not forgetting that the student athletes were in school primarily for an education. Joe Paterno’s graduation rates usually hovered around 90%, which is remarkable and certainly among the best in his profession. Over the course of his 46 years he was known to have given back to the school & the community in the form of millions of dollars in donations that had far reaching benefits. Even their plain blue uniforms with the unadorned white helmets conveyed a sense of cleanliness & purity. Secondly, as rabid as many sports fans…including yours truly…can be, most of us have a sense of perspective. We realize that there are many many things in life far more important than the outcome of a game.

 

Taking these two things into consideration, it is not surprising that the situation at Penn State took an ugly turn very quickly. For one of the “cleanest” programs in college football to be plagued by a scandal is shocking enough. For that scandal to involve repeated sexual assault of children is unspeakably horrifying. Joe Paterno and his sterling reputation would likely have survived some recruiting violations or other relatively benign indiscretions that aren’t uncommon in big time collegiate athletics, but to seemingly ignore sexual abuse of young boys was just too big of a transgression to overlook. Paterno’s legendary career came to an abrupt end when he was fired, a conclusion that no one in their wildest dreams could have ever foreseen just a few months ago.

 

Sure, there have been many that have been calling for an end to the Paterno era for several years. He was old, out of touch, just a figurehead. But even though the Nittany Lions haven’t really been in the national title hunt for most of the past 15 years they were, for the most part, still very successful and won a lot of games. That fact combined with Paterno’s legendary status, his record of community service & involvement, and the unsoiled status of the program made him virtually unchallengeable. But there was no way that he could survive the battering that he & the institution he served so faithfully for over a half century have taken in the past several weeks.

 

I think it is vitally important to make a clear distinction between Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno. No one is defending Sandusky or feeling any kind of sympathy for his plight. Though under the outstanding American legal system he is technically innocent until proven guilty there seems to be enough smoke to indicate that there was indeed fire, and if he did commit the acts for which he is accused to say that he is a vile, revolting, sinful, sick & twisted dirtbag would be a huge understatement. The general attitude toward Paterno is much more ambiguous and diverse. Few are denying that he made a huge error in judgment, but just how sinister that mistake was and how harshly he should be scorned is a spirited topic of debate.

 

There is little argument that the Board of Trustees made the right decision by dismissing Paterno. They were put in a very difficult position and did the only thing that made any sense for the long term good of the school, the town, and the victims of the alleged crimes. However, it is also a fact that Joe Paterno is not being accused of doing anything illegal and that when the situation was reported to him he did tell his immediate superior. It’s not that he did nothing, it’s that the general consensus is that he did not do enough under the considerably serious circumstances.

 

There is a part of me that feels very sad for Coach Paterno. In contrast to my fondness for heartwarming stories in which people retire at the height of their glory, his fall from grace has been so rapid and so precipitous that it is hard to really wrap one’s head around the epic descent. Complicating matters is the fact that the man is 85 years old. There will be no comeback, no opportunity for absolution, and that is disheartening because we all love a good redemption story. However, with the aforementioned proper perspective we should all realize that Joe Paterno, Penn State University, and the Nittany Lion football team are largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. The fact is that 9 or more young boys were violated in a way that will have an ineradicable impact on their lives. No legal outcome, no amount of money, no public apologies, no job dismissals will ever erase that. My prayer is that those young men have and will continue to find a way to move forward, seek happiness, and not let what one disgusting pervert did to them ruin their lives. In due time I am sure society will find a balance between the success Joe Paterno had & the good things he did versus the mistakes he made & the negative way his legacy has been permanently tarnished, and that’s about as much as can be expected.

 

 

 

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9/11/2001 Ten Years Later…”There Are No Words”

 

I seem to recall it was a rather lovely late summer/early autumn day. Sun shining. Temperate. Clear skies. What the meteorologist on the local news would call a “Wow Day”.

 

At the time I worked four tens…Noon-11pm…as a supervisor at a telemarketing company. On that particular Tuesday I had to go in at 9am for our monthly Employee of the Month ceremony, a big dog & pony show where the suits from our corporate office in Akron came down to make boring & repetitive speeches and give out meaningless awards.

 

For some reason I never turned on my TV that morning. I just got up and got ready for the big meeting. I only lived a mile from the office so I left my apartment between 8:30 & 8:45. During my short commute I heard on the radio that an airplane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. At first there was some confusion and reports seemed to indicate that it may have been a small plane that an inexperienced recreational pilot had somehow steered way off course. I have never been to New York City and I thought maybe that kind of thing wasn’t a completely unheard of scenario. It was an interesting story but I had other things on my mind and just shook it off.

 

That didn’t last long. As I got to the parking lot at the office a couple of my co-workers were outside. They asked me if I’d heard the news. From there the sequence of events is a bit of a blur. There was a television on in our conference room where we watched it all unfold. We soon found out that it was a commercial airliner that had crashed into the tower. Then television cameras actually caught the second plane crashing into the other tower. I’m no expert, but it immediately became clear to me that this was no accident…it was very much intentional. Soon we heard that the bosses from Akron had not even left Ohio yet on their company jet. Then we heard that all air travel in the United States had been suspended…all flights grounded. That really grabbed my attention. A clearly concerned President Bush tersely addressed the nation. News emerged that a plane had also crashed into the Pentagon, and that another had been hijacked and was presumably headed for Washington DC to dive-bomb into the U.S. Capitol before mysteriously crashing into a field in Pennsylvania less than 3 hours from my home here in West Virginia. Terrorism, which all my life had been associated with faraway places like Libya and Iran, had come to America. Oh there had been a few small incidents previously (the World Trade Center itself had been bombed by a truck in its garage in 1993, killing 6 people), but nothing on this scale. What was unfolding before my eyes was unimaginable.

 

Eventually the EOM ceremony was cancelled, and at some point, to my utter shock & amazement, all operations shut down for the day. Still we stayed. We sat in the conference room watching the TV as the first tower fell, then the second tower. In the blink of an eye the well-known landscape of NY City was irrevocably changed. I came home and continued to watch the coverage on television. The world had stopped.

 

I was not directly affected by the events of September 11, 2001. I had no friends or family members killed, injured, or even present. I didn’t even tangentially know of anyone involved. I never had any fear that my town may come under attack. Little ol’ West Virginia isn’t that important. But the images of that day will stay with me forever. The second plane crashing into the tower. The buildings falling to the ground. The smoke billowing like some sort of sci-fi monster, covering lower Manhattan with soot and debris. The stunned look on people as they wandered through the greatest city in the nation. As one news anchor put it that day “Good Lord…there are no words.”

 

The ensuing years have seen the tragic events of 9/11 become a political football, marginalizing the loss of life and trivializing the decisions made in its aftermath. That is not my intention here. However, I must say that one thing that will always stick with me was the strong leadership exhibited by President George W. Bush and Mayor Rudy Giuliani. No matter what party one may be registered to or what views one may have about economics, social issues, and foreign policy I defy anyone to deny with a straight face that those two men showed incredible resolve, decisiveness, and composure in a time of madness, anger, confusion, and anguish.

 

For a brief period after 9/11 our nation stood united and embraced our heritage of faith, charity, and love. Even when those feelings gave way to anger as we began to grasp what exactly had occurred and understood who exactly had perpetrated this heinous act of cowardice we were united in that rage. And while that unity and prayerful attitude was all too short-lived it was uplifting & encouraging at a time when the masses needed uplifted and encouraged. If only it didn’t take a disaster to produce that outlook. If only it would last for more than a couple of weeks. If only.

 

One thing that has lasted in the decade since 9/11 is a newfound respect for law enforcement, firefighters, and the military. I think society had gotten complacent and began to take those folks for granted. But as we sat in our comfortable homes watching the ultimate, saddest, most heart wrenching reality show in history a healthy reverence emerged for those who put their lives on the line to protect & serve others every single day. They run into burning buildings when everyone else is running away, and nothing ever illustrated that fact more than the events of September 11, 2001.

 

For some odd reason I have been touched more than anything by the stories of those that miraculously survived that day. The people who missed their flights on the four planes that crashed. Those that called in sick or were running 10 minutes late to work and therefore weren’t in the towers when they were hit. Those stories, while haunting, illustrate, atleast to me, the presence of God and His grace. I don’t know why this person died but that person survived. I’m not that smart. But I believe that those kind of small miracles happen every single day whether we know it or not.

 

I wish I could come up with something poetic and profound to say about 9/11 on its 10th Anniversary. Every generation seems to have its historic watershed moment of heartbreak. Pearl Harbor. The assassination of JFK. The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Hurricane Katrina. There are no logical explanations for why these things happen or why good people die under such horrific circumstances. We know that hatred exists. Hatred for freedom. Hatred for God. Hatred for humanity. It would be nice if we could obliterate the hate, but that is unrealistic. However, we also know that the vast majority of the population has a tremendous capacity for love, compassion, kindness, patience, and empathy. That does not mean that we are willing to be weak. It has been well demonstrated in the past decade that America will open up a can of whoopass on those that threaten our way of life.

 

Countless lessons were learned on that terrible day ten years ago, both on a grand scale and in the course of everyday small town life. I hope we never forget the event or what we learned from it. We owe it to the 3000 innocent people whose lives were taken to honor their memory, to appreciate every day of life given to us by God, and to defend the principles of freedom & liberty that are the bedrock of our nation. We owe it to the first responders who sacrificed their lives in an effort to save others and military personnel who have perished in the war on terror that was birthed on 9/11 to always appreciate the fantastic job that those individuals do and the danger they voluntarily put themselves in each & every day. However, we also know that life moves on. We cannot wallow in heartbreak or live in fear. I can’t even imagine the sadness and pain the families & friends of those murdered that day have endured…the spouses suddenly left alone and the countless children who lost a parent. But even those folks have had to get on with their lives. I am sure many have remarried. The children have grown up. Some of the rules may have changed, but we continue…we love, we laugh, we work, we live. We move forward. Hopefully we take time to call a friend or visit a neighbor, and never ever pass up an opportunity to tell someone “Thanks” or “I love you”. We should have always done those things, but sometimes we get too lazy, too busy, or too caught up in our own perceived self-importance. Regardless of politics we should understand that we live in the greatest nation on earth and enjoy advantages that are the envy of the world. Evildoers knocked us down on September 11, 2001, but we got back up. We will always get back up.

 

God Bless America, and may God continue to guide & direct the loved ones of the thousands lost on that terrible day a decade ago.

 

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