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Did you know the toothbrush was invented in West Virginia?
Sunday, June 30th, 2024 11:18 pm… if it was invented anywhere else they would've called it a teethbrush.
Like the British, dental structure and oral hygiene seems to have improved significantly in the last few generations. The person who told that joke was the only person I saw in West Virginia born after World War II and with visibly missing teeth, but he was explaining how a whitewater rafting paddle can cause dental damage.
Also breaking with stereotypes, I drove nearly 1,000 miles in West Virginia and through Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and saw fewer than a dozen Trump yard signs, flags, or bumper stickers. On a 2,000 mile trip through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Akransas in April I could count the number of Trump memorabilia on one hand, including a "Let's Go Brandon" bumper sticker and the "Thank you Trump" semi trailer parked on the north side of I-70 in Eastern Colorado. This is way down from what I saw in Kansas and Arkansas in 2022, and nobody seems to even be flying FJB flags. I don't know what conclusions to draw from this observation, and I certainly don't think Biden's going to win much of the Mississippi basin. But maybe folks in red states are just not as into Trump as they were eight years ago. They've got other things on their mind.
A friend said I'd see Confederate flags in West Virginia. I said that would be incredibly ironic; don't these people know their history? I think the only one I saw was just across the border from Virginia. Towns with a big outdoor recreation economy are now the kinds of place where bars have a pride flag hanging in the doorway in June. American flags were plentiful, though, as were custom wood-carved signs. Several state parks had a stylized "Almost Heaven" etched into the state outline, hanging above a wooden swing for photo ops. Country Roads has a cultural prominence in West Virginia that Rocky Mountain High hasn't achieved in Colorado.
The roads are indeed windy in West Virginia: I felt surprise when I came upon a three-mile stretch of straight highway, complete with a road cut. Signs on I-79 proudly proclaim "Senator Robert C. Byrd Appalachian Highway System," and it definitely has a "federal money was brought to West Virginia" feel. Most of the roads are also girded by trees, which feels unusual to drivers from the western US: "there's probably a lovely scenic vista here, but all I see is green." Even rafting New River Gorge, "the Grand Canyon of the eastern US," there was only one stretch of visible rock wall; maybe late fall is the time for sightseeing. The shade was a quite welcome respite while hiking in the 90+° 50% humidity heat dome last week, though.
True to stereotypes I did see a dead possum in the middle of the road. No possum on any menu, though… not that it was ever "cuisine" as much as "what folks could trap near their house." I saw way fewer lifted pickup trucks than I would in a typical Denver suburb, though I did see people driving ATVs down a main street. A lot of the available trails are railroad grade, so you can probably go "offroading" in an economy sedan.
A coal train slowly screeched its way up the gorge as I walked around the remains of Nutallburg, a thriving coal town in Henry Ford's vertical integration plans a century ago, now a bit of rusting infrastructure, a row of coke ovens being overtaken by vegetation, and a few stone building foundations. West Virginia still ships a fair amount of coal&emdash;particularly for high-height uses like metallurgy&emdash;but long gone are the days when dozens of mining towns employed hundreds of people each. In addition to powering America's past, West Virginia is powering America's future too: a long ridge of tall windmills stand proudly atop the Alleghenys near the eastern continental divide.
Like the British, dental structure and oral hygiene seems to have improved significantly in the last few generations. The person who told that joke was the only person I saw in West Virginia born after World War II and with visibly missing teeth, but he was explaining how a whitewater rafting paddle can cause dental damage.
Also breaking with stereotypes, I drove nearly 1,000 miles in West Virginia and through Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and saw fewer than a dozen Trump yard signs, flags, or bumper stickers. On a 2,000 mile trip through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Akransas in April I could count the number of Trump memorabilia on one hand, including a "Let's Go Brandon" bumper sticker and the "Thank you Trump" semi trailer parked on the north side of I-70 in Eastern Colorado. This is way down from what I saw in Kansas and Arkansas in 2022, and nobody seems to even be flying FJB flags. I don't know what conclusions to draw from this observation, and I certainly don't think Biden's going to win much of the Mississippi basin. But maybe folks in red states are just not as into Trump as they were eight years ago. They've got other things on their mind.
A friend said I'd see Confederate flags in West Virginia. I said that would be incredibly ironic; don't these people know their history? I think the only one I saw was just across the border from Virginia. Towns with a big outdoor recreation economy are now the kinds of place where bars have a pride flag hanging in the doorway in June. American flags were plentiful, though, as were custom wood-carved signs. Several state parks had a stylized "Almost Heaven" etched into the state outline, hanging above a wooden swing for photo ops. Country Roads has a cultural prominence in West Virginia that Rocky Mountain High hasn't achieved in Colorado.
The roads are indeed windy in West Virginia: I felt surprise when I came upon a three-mile stretch of straight highway, complete with a road cut. Signs on I-79 proudly proclaim "Senator Robert C. Byrd Appalachian Highway System," and it definitely has a "federal money was brought to West Virginia" feel. Most of the roads are also girded by trees, which feels unusual to drivers from the western US: "there's probably a lovely scenic vista here, but all I see is green." Even rafting New River Gorge, "the Grand Canyon of the eastern US," there was only one stretch of visible rock wall; maybe late fall is the time for sightseeing. The shade was a quite welcome respite while hiking in the 90+° 50% humidity heat dome last week, though.
True to stereotypes I did see a dead possum in the middle of the road. No possum on any menu, though… not that it was ever "cuisine" as much as "what folks could trap near their house." I saw way fewer lifted pickup trucks than I would in a typical Denver suburb, though I did see people driving ATVs down a main street. A lot of the available trails are railroad grade, so you can probably go "offroading" in an economy sedan.
A coal train slowly screeched its way up the gorge as I walked around the remains of Nutallburg, a thriving coal town in Henry Ford's vertical integration plans a century ago, now a bit of rusting infrastructure, a row of coke ovens being overtaken by vegetation, and a few stone building foundations. West Virginia still ships a fair amount of coal&emdash;particularly for high-height uses like metallurgy&emdash;but long gone are the days when dozens of mining towns employed hundreds of people each. In addition to powering America's past, West Virginia is powering America's future too: a long ridge of tall windmills stand proudly atop the Alleghenys near the eastern continental divide.
