the ills and thrills of the old hometown

So amazed, blessed, and happy about getting a bit of the homeplace back. The rest belongs to a fellow who won't let go of it "fer love nor money" but won't take care of it, either. On our way to the homeplace, we drive through town. As we drive up main street and turn down Oakford, I see that the town is still looking as dead as its been for the past ten years or so, main street looks derelict and nothing thrives. Sweet looking people over in front of the Oakford motel, some of them vaguely familiar.



Over on the south side, the kids still play outside. This is so rare in most places. It's so rare, that you notice it. Little boys out stomping in mudpuddles and riding bikes, a little baby in a diaper clapping its hands at a shaft of sunlight, little girls with their heads together, talking about what they're going to play next. You just know, if you were close enough, you'd hear, "Let's 'tend like..." And all the little voices would chip in with bits and pieces of the story they will be playing.

Long time back, little kids had three local grocery stores to go to on the South side, not counting all the little shops that were in the town. Now, of course, there's only a bedraggled dollar store, a half-stocked Foodland and a drug store in the new shopping strip and nothing at all up and running on Main street.

Before you get into town, though, there is the new restaurant -- a bit like its own home town. You go into Mumsey's and you are counted as a friend, treated like company come in out of the cold (or the heat, as the case may be). And when you leave, it's to the sound, pretty much, of "y'all come back". The folks cooking the food and running the place know you -- and if they don't know you, they knew your grandpa, and if you're a stranger to the area, you are a brand new friend and they'll welcome you to the area. They are upbeat, just what the town needs. If only there were more folks like these.

As something builds, something is torn down. The hospital, a 4-story building as sturdy as the day it was built (some 57 years ago) was torn down. They say it was because it was in the floodplain, but there are houses untouched all around it and the nursing home is also left untouched. The hospital wasn't torn down in the usual way. It was demolished into a pile of rubble. It looked like a war zone with the bent, twisted metal and the brick and marble reduced to grist and dust. Mark and I were both born there, and many of our loved ones spent their last moments there, including my Mom and Grandma.

Meanwhile, there are several houses that need torn down, seriously damaged buildings that are a danger to anyone even walking near them.

There are many ups and downs concerning the old home town. It's a bit strange to see the place -- for me, it's like a split screen as I see what is there and remember what was.

The real downer right now is the convoy of white trucks from Texas and the five vanloads of workers they've brought in and all the machinery to go frack up the good land and destroy the river (and drinking water) of the town. The trucks don't stop to feed their troops at Mumseys, they head straight on over to Summersville to stay in the motels there and support that town. Even this tiny bit they withhold from the area they are destroying. I tell you I would not mind if the rattlesnakes up south fork would raise up and do a little fracking of their own.

Today, as we worked on the homeplace, we had company: