Dear West Virginia,
I suppose this has been a long time coming. Looking back, it must have seemed abrupt. Twenty-two years we spent together, then I up and left with no real explanation. I probably owed you more than that. So I’ll try my best to explain it to you now.
We were perfect together at first, weren’t we? As a boy, I couldn’t have asked for a better playmate. Your hills and trees, your railroad tracks, rivers, and run-down factories. You could have killed me a dozen times, at least. I seemed to be asking for it. I was rough on you, but you gave as good as you got. My blood in your soil, your splinters and gravel under my skin. This is how we did it, becoming more and more of one another every single day.
I drew your initials in my notebooks in the sharp angles of the university logo. They weren’t just letters. They were you. I wore blue and gold, but those weren’t your only colors. You were green and white, too. Just like my Paden City Wildcats. You were orange and yellow and red, your hillsides alight with fire every autumn. You were the purple of the Ohio River, the sun’s last rays drawn deep. You were black, a night sky as endless as my imagination.
You were everything to me. My mom and my dad. My brother and my grandparents. My home and my school. All of my very first firsts. It was perfect while it lasted.
I wish I could tell you when things changed. That I could point to one moment. Maybe the first time I saw the ocean, standing there with my pant legs hiked to my knees, staring at the end of the earth. Maybe it was something I saw on television: a bionic man, a talking car, a chimpanzee sidekick, a girl in her underwear. Maybe it was the books, one of the stories that seemed so wild and strange and far beyond anything I could ever imagine happening while surrounded by the steadfastness of you.
That might be part of it. I knew, as sure as I knew anything, that you were never going to change. You’d spent lifetimes building mountains from flat, solid ground. You’d grown forests, had them taken from you, and grown them again. You were strong, stalwart, and set in the ways that worked for you. But I slowly began to realize they wouldn’t work for me.
I can’t actually think of a time beyond boyhood when I thought I was going to stay. It’s strange. Ungrateful, I suppose. You were the only thing I knew and somehow you weren’t enough. But my interests and ambitions grew beyond any realistic expectations. Far beyond the reach of your panhandles. And I suppose that changes a relationship forever.
The question is, did I begin to stand out because I knew I was going to leave? Or did I know I was going to leave because I was beginning to stand out? I fished your streams, but with little frequency and even less success. Friends and family stalked your forests for hours in the hope of bringing home deer, quail, squirrel. The interest never took with me. But there were bigger things. Ideals I didn’t recognize, some old-fashioned, some simply old. Disagreement with common-held beliefs. Those I saw as wrong-headed, and those I knew were just plain wrong. All of that combined to leave me somewhere in between. There, but not.
I know your state bird, your state flower, your state tree, your state animal. I know your state fish, for crying out loud. Every fiber of my being was forged, formed, and intricately woven by the experience of growing up with you: my basic values, my ingrained suspicions, my belief that good things can always happen to you, but don’t hold your breath.
You see, I’ve never had a problem being from West Virginia. I just had some difficulty being in West Virginia.
Still, now, the places we knew together are like songs to me. Just the names bring a flood of memories: Dolly Sods, Canaan Valley, Oil Ridge, Buck Run, Bickles Knob. And then the places that had no real title: the rope swing on the north end of town, the outfield of the far baseball diamond, the attic of my best friend’s house, and, of course, the few square feet of my bedroom. I papered those walls with dreams. That town. I sought your best places and poured endless meaning into some of your most ordinary corners. I did all of this, day after day, for over eight thousand days. And then, one day, it was time to go.
You probably didn’t see it, because my back was to you as I drove, but I cried when I left. And not just because I was in Kentucky. I cried because I missed you already. I cried because I’d never been away from you for longer than two weeks. I cried because I was afraid. Because if I wasn’t a West Virginian, then what was I?
I had a tape recorder on the front seat to capture thoughts as I drove, alone, toward a new life. This is what I said as I left you behind: “If California is half as good to me as West Virginia has been, I’m going to be in pretty good shape.”
And I was right. But a dozen years here has taught me just how wrong I was about something else. I never stopped being a West Virginian. There are some things that can’t be undone. Not by all the gods in all the heavens. Geography be damned.
The other day someone wrote to me and said, “I’ll be coming to your state next week.” And I thought, “I wonder why he’s going to West Virginia?” He wasn’t. He was coming to California. But I still, in my marrow, think of you as “my state.” I only hope you still think of me as your son.
I have grandparents and great-grandparents buried in your ground. I have family living in the curves of your hills. I have pieces of me scattered all across your land. And I have the best parts of you locked here in my heart.
Maybe that’s not enough. Maybe all these words can never explain away what I did. Maybe abandonment is too great a sin to be absolved. Maybe. But I like to think not.
I like to think all your countless years have given you unbridled understanding, the likes of which I’ll never understand. That on a cold autumn night when the air smells like burning leaves and small town football, you miss me a little, too. I like to think that when I come home, you’re as happy to see me as I am you. And that the few days we get to spend together each year are like a gift, a time machine. Proof that old friends never fade.
That’s what I like to think.
Forever yours,
Jason
Jason Headley does some things for art and some things for money.
I grew up in Boone County, and I have been in the USAF since 1992. I make it back about once a year, and after 19 years, it is tough to leave WV to go back to California, where I have been stationed since 1993. I have about 1500 hours in a C-5, meet people all over the world, and I am proud to call myself a Mountaineer!!!!! BTW, nothing was more fun than Russians singing Country Roads for me in 2005!!!
Hello Jason,
WOW! You have captured what it means to be a West Virginian. I love to visit other cities and states, but my heart always longs for WV. WV has been my home for 38yrs and I have no plans on ever leaving her. WV Mountain Mama.
Jason,
Thanks for a beautiful description of our home. I left Paden City, WV 22 years ago and I still tear up when I hear “Country Roads”. This is the time of the year, when the hills are vivid with orange and red, that I miss home the most.
Your letter home eloquently stated how many of us who have left may feel. I wish I had your talent with words.
Thanks,
Bobette
Pitch perfect. A beautiful piece.
Montani Semper Liberi.
Dear Jason,
Your words touched me somewhere very deep in my heart, and caused my eyes to leak! I was born, raised, and still abide in West Virginia for 61 years now. When I was young, I wanted to move to California and surf like “Gidget”. My oldest brother did move to California. He was educated there, raised a family of six children there, held a wonderful job there with Lockheed as an aeronautical engineer…..but in the end he returned home….here he spent his last six years, and often wondered why he ever left his first love…..Whenever I leave for vacation, I am so happy to see the West Virginia, Almost Heaven sign……my heart begins to feel a love liken to that of seeing one’s own mother…..Here I feel safe, here I feel accepted, here I feel peace……Your words exactly captured all I have felt, and how I am sure my brother felt while he was gone…..so to speak. My other brother moved to Paden City as a young man, married a girl from there, raised his children there…..now his son is living Maryland, and misses, and longs for home…..and for the same reasons as many above spoke….he cannot afford to stay here. God bless you for your words….and for the wonderful confirmation I received from them.
Thank you so much for this Jason. I fled West Virginia when I was 18 and headed to the beach. I always thought there was ‘more’ for me somewhere else. From the beach, I headed to the Rockies. But I have ALWAYS felt pride when I told people that I was from West Virginia. And then I always told them that I loved my state but that I’d never move back. And now, at this point in my life, I am starting to change my mind. In fact, I will be spending the winter there and it feels very full circle and like the thing that makes the most sense. So take me home country roads…
Nice work Jason. I left WV 12 yrs ago, so I could relate to everyrhing you wrote as so many others can. But I think a big point to make is, why do so many relate to this. It’s because those West Virginians moved because they didn’t have a choice. In order to be successful in their career or in seak of better opportunity, they had to go to other states to do so. And as much as I love the visits I make bakc to the hills, I don’t see anything that has changed to help stop future generations from having no choice but to make the same voyege elsewhere. While I wouldn’t trade to amazing life I had growing up in WV and I am so grateful for the role growing up in a state with so much kinship did in molding me into who I am today, I leave each visit knowing I could never live there. And I don’t see it getting any better. And in some cases, it’s gotten worse. Don’t take this as a WV bash, I love my home state and I’m proud to say it, but the reality of why the states loses so many can’t be denied.
Great, now Jason is gonna get a big head and think he’s a writer or something.
Jason,
That is absolutely beautiful! It is exactly what I feel about West Virginia and Paden City. What great places to be from. I still live in West Virginia and have only lived elsewhere one time. It was the worst year of my life and I finally begged to come back home… back to West Virginia where I belong. Your grandmother would have been so very proud of you and I’m very sure she is looking upon what you are doing and smiling that wonderful smile of hers. She and my mother are in heaven shopping like the fools they were when they shopped. If you never experienced shopping with the two of them you will just have to trust me on this one. I’m happy to say I saw you grow up and you have done your family, town, and state proud.
Jason,
That is beautiful, you have such a wonderful way with words. Thank you so much for sharing. I also am from Paden City, lived there most of my life.
Just beautiful…you made my cry and wish I was home
Back in the Seventies, my family moved to Ohio and every time we made a trip back to WV my dad would always say..”we’ll be heading back home this weekend”. For Seven years..we were always going “back home”. As I grew up, It came to my attention that there is something about WV that holds peoples hearts like the love between a mother and a child. No matter where they roam..WV always stays home sweet home. Beautiful piece Jason..Not only does it describes the beauty and life of these mountains but it describes the feelings and love its citizens have that many people don’t understand about this state.
I loved your article. I have lived in
Thank you for your beautifully written article. I have ived in
Ca., Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. I have been in46 of the lower 48, but was always happy to come back home. No other state can compare to our West Virginia hills.
Jason, Thank you for writing this. I don’t know you but we have one thing in common, the love of our home West Virginia. I currently reside in South Carolina where I have lived for almost twenty years. I left home for the same reason most of us did, to find work. Due to my work ethic I have had a successful career. I contribute that too my upbringing in West Virginia where life is not easy and hard work is a way of life. I regret leaving home, and often wonder what life I would have made for myself had I not. I believe that God sent me here to meet my wife for which I’m so very thankful for. But wouldn’t you know it, she also has ties to West Virginia, her mother is a McCoy from Paden city. I know so many of us have ventured out to find whatever they seek in life. I can’t help but wonder what if we (West Virginians) were able to apply ourself’s to the success of our own home. Don’t we owe her that? She made us who we are, mannerly, respectful, humble, thankful. When I come home for a visit and see that sign welcome to wild wonderful West Virginia I always lift one hand from the wheel and make a fist followed by a YES I’m home. I miss my home very much and I will never stop trying to get back to where I belong. For those of you who are not from West Virginia would not and can not understand what we have in our hearts.
God, I love this state. Nobody I’ve ever met has been as proud of their home state (nor as wistful when remembering it) as I am, but you’ve put it better than I ever could have. I have friends that have traveled the world, and while I lament the fact that I’ll never have the resources to do the same, I don’t really feel sorry for myself for never having the opportunity, because I guess that I’ve already seen the best the world has to offer. My girlfriend and I traveled to Vermont last weekend, and while she was excited to show off the scenery and some of the hiking trails the state had to offer, I kept thinking to myself “I could have seen all of this with a trip back to West Virginia and saved myself a half-dozen hours of driving.
Jason, you are a talented writer. I loved “Small Town Odds” and have recommended it to several of my friends (even at the risk of losing my prized copy, bought when it was first published), and look forward to reading anything and everything you write. Your love of our home state shows through beautifully in your talent.
Jason, well written. I can’t wait to tell your parents that I read it on FB:)
As I was reading this, I was praying it would continue on the path of goodness. My heart beat stronger with each word. My soul is embedded in these mountains. So to you, I give thanks for leaving a part of your heart and soul here too.
I grew up in a very rural part of WV and LOVED it! We went to church Sunday morning and evening and Wed. evenings, we prayed together and played together. My daddy worked hard at his job an hour away and farmed in the evenings & weekends just like every other able bodied man. We were poor but didn’t have a clue because we were happy, healthy and everyone else seemed to be just like us. There were 5 of us kids and we had enough clothes due to hand me downs and mom sewed, she even made our big winter coats. We had plenty to eat because we raised our own cows to milk and to eat, pigs, chickens for eggs and to eat and a big garden that we canned, froze or put in the root cellar. Ground our own cornmeal, grew popcorn, made our own soap, butter, bread, jams and jellies. As kids we helped and learned how to do all those things because there were no video games, computers or much TV. Even if there were, we wouldn’t be able to do them until all the chores were done. My husband and I met in high school, and he joined the military so we’ve lived in other places but took that good ole “WV know how” with us and was able to adapt. After several years, we decided to come back “home” to raise our family. Away from the murders, drugs and not knowing who your next door neighbor is. We’ve been back home for 25 years now. Yes the drugs are here now and an occasional murder but I know everyone in my neighborhood and if I didn’t go to school with them, I at least knew their parent, child or sibling. The downfall of this state is too many have gotten lazy and would prefer the government (welfare or disability) to take care of them generation after generation. It’s time to make welfare a “hand up” not a continual “hand out”.
Loved reading your piece Jason.
Whether we’re Almost Heaven, Open For Business or Wild and Wonderful…West Virginia welcomes you with open arms!
My husband has always said that so many West Virginians spend their first 20 years trying to leave and the next 20 trying to get back.
Wetzel County is well represented here, I’m a Magnolia man. Though, ironically, I’m wearing a Paden City sweatshirt as I type this. It hits close to home. I still have scars from attempting (and failing) to bicycle down Oil Ridge. Much like the rest of you, success demanded relocation. It’s been a topic amongst friends for years. I’m happy to read these thoughts from another source. It’s an unusual situation to be in love with a place so fully, yet feel like it was several lifetimes ago. Great work.
My husband and I are both from Beckley, WV. We now live in Pittsburgh, which is nice because it’s less than 4 hours away from our Southern WV town but we reminisce about childhood, high school & college memories from our great state all the time. Fall is hard for me because I miss the WV mountains and beautiful autumn colors but at least we’re not too far away.
Your article made me very emotional and it probably didn’t help that it’s Bridge Day in Wild & Wonderful West Virginia today! HaHa!
We <3 WV!
That was breathtaking…and I still live here! There are times that I’ve felt left behind because I never left WV. I felt jealous of folks like Jason that got to “see the world”. But after reading those words…I think that, just perhaps, I’ve led the life to be jealous of – in the shadow of Spruce Knob and Seneca Rocks and Dolly Sods. Jason – your words were beautiful. Great work.
Yet another piece of your wild, wonderful writing, about a state equally wild and wonderful. I defy anyone who’s spent any amount of time in our home state to read this without laughing, crying and feeling the same emotions you expressed throughout. Small bathrooms, indeed!
I am turning 63 years old this month, and this short but wonderful piece from Jason reads understanding more than any description of West Virginia.
Yes, I left for a short time for Military service and after college, to make my way in the world and support my family. Less than 18 months later, I was back “Home” in West Virginia and realized that was the best way to support my family I could ever give them.
I have lived my whole life in Wheeling, WV (not far from Paden City), struggled on medium income, commuted to Pittsburgh for ten years, bought four (4) homes (but always in Wheeling, WV lol). I travel for work extensively and have been all over, there is simply no place like home, and Jason captures it on paper in a wonderful writing style.
I lost my wife and life’s partner in 2007, and I miss her greatly, but I will stay in West Virginia forever and with all of the stories and dreams people describe of retiring to Florida, or the Carolinas, or wherever………. I will retire right where I am in West “by God” Virginia.
I not only am a girl from W.Va, but also a Wheeling Island girl. My Mother was born and raised in the home I grew up in. The Island isn’t very pretty any more, but the hills and the river are. I have lived in southern Ohio now for 30 years and always say “I’m going home” whenever we go for a visit.
Dear Jason, Very nice. Several years ago I wrote a book, A Better Place, that tried to express the feelings that you have for West Virginia. Take care and keep writing.