more than anywhere else i know, it is a place of united tradition and holding on to what has always been. change, bound to happen, is financial opportunity slow to arrive, and a transplanting of the outcast; strugglers coming into the land of old hands at struggling, and a return of the retired.
trucks, full of the big city’s trash, come one after another to empty their load in the pits, made where coal company machinery ate farmland. scattered everywhere are tracks of coal mining lakes that the company didn’t bother to fill in.
mosquitoes thrive in the warm humid landscape of summer, bug spray a common purchase.
in this place are the few people of a simple faith. a set strength of humor and caring, is prevalent, keeping the odds at bay. prayer chains, and family is the string that holds the brown paper folded against the package.
relation dots the countryside.
baseball is considered the national sport and the small schools do well to keep a competitive field. some of the best players have grown up in this place. this place of corn fields and lighting bugs.
it begs one to slow down and listen, restore an old car, have reunions, stop to have lunch with friends. a place of town-wide garage sales and friday fish fries. upcoming events hang by a push pin on corked boards. and some think that there is nothing going on.
