Yes, things have changed a lot in my hometown area since I was a kid.  There are other big changes in the view from and on the farm where I grew up.  From the top of the hill where the house we built sits, you can see the Pleasants Power Station. 

You can’t miss it.  The power plant looms large in the area these days.  It’s located down the road a little ways in Willow Island, West Virginia.

It dominates the landscape, our history, and our memories.  It looks serene enough in the above picture, but on April 27, 1978, it was the scene of the worst construction disaster in US history. That day is seared into the memory of people living in Pleasants County in much the same way the 9/11 disaster is seared into the country’s collective memory.

At the time, the second of the two 430-foot cooling towers for the new Pleasants Power Station was being built. The men worked on the next section of the tower from scaffolding attached to the previous pour of concrete.

Unfortunately, on April 27, 1978, the concrete was too green and hadn’t hardened enough to hold the scaffolding properly. Contractors were trying to speed up the construction, and in hindsight, it appears safety wasn’t given the priority it should have had.  Key bolts meant to attach the scaffolding to the tower were missing, and other problems were found during investigations after the accident.

Bottom line, the scaffolding ripped out, leaving a scar on the tower about halfway up where a dark line marks the level the concrete failed. There’s another scar on the community as 51 men died that day, tumbling about 166 feet to their death.

Pleasants County became the unwanted focus of media attention.  Many were not kind, and portrayed the people as ignorant hillbillies, yet they were the ones hiding in bushes to film funerals.  They were relentless in their push to get a story and had no respect for the grieving family and friends of those 51 men.  This cruel treatment and skewing of facts left yet another scar on the community.

In the following years, the construction was eventually completed and the towers put into operation.  People living nearby then had a new problem - pollution.  Fine ash settled over houses and cars.  The power plant solved the problem by buying up the houses closest to the power station.

When Dad bought the house we’d built, he sold the old home place to the power company.  As they did with all the other houses they bought, they destroyed it.  In this case, the house was used as a training exercise for local firefighters and burnt down.  I saw a picture of the house burning when we visited Dad last week.  It had a powerful impact to see the house where I grew up in flames.  I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it actually happen.

The story twists yet again, however.  Where the house I was raised in once stood, there is now a memorial to those 51 men who died during the construction of the cooling tower the looms tall in the background.

Anthony Lauer, the grandson of one of the victims, Larry Gale Steele, raised $70,000 as a sixth-grade social studies project to build the memorial.  The names of each of those 51 men who died is written on a bronze plaque attached to the memorial.

This tribute is a constant reminder of those men.  It’s also a reminder of some of the many changes in my hometown. 

You see, while it’s true no one can go “home” again, some people’s hometowns have changed more than others.   And just maybe Pleasants county has seen more changes than most.

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You’ve heard the old saying, “You can’t go home again.” And of course, the home it refers to is where you grew up. Your hometown. And though it may be a bit trite, it’s true, you really can’t go home again. Oh sure, you can go back for a visit, but your hometown will have changed, and further, you will have changed too. It can never be the same.

I experienced that syndrome when we visited my hometown last week. I grew up in rural West Virginia. Not as backwoods as some places, but not citified either. We had a farm of about 90+ acres and raised beef cattle, plus at various times, hogs, turkeys, chickens, etc. I guess it was a pretty typical farm for the area.

When I was eighteen I married my high school sweetheart and left home. We moved to various places for college and work, but eventually moved back to our hometown area and built a house on 7 acres taken from the original farm. We placed the house on top of a hill with a view of the Ohio River. I can remember my mother telling me when I was a kid what a great place it would be for a house. She was right.

Here’s the back of the house. There’s a long driveway to get to it, then another piece of country road before you get to the main highway.

We only lived there for about three years before my x-husband got the wanderlust again and wanted to try a new job and a new location.  The kids and I didn’t really want to move, but move we did.  We sold the house to my Dad, who still lives there.  It seems a little strange sometimes to go back to a house I helped build, and someone else is living in it, and of course, there have been many changes.

For instance, the semi-dwarf fruit trees I planted as little saplings have matured.  They produced a bumper crop of fruit this year. Here’s one of the trees still full of apples when we visited.

Dad planted even more fruit trees, so he had a LOT of fruit this year - apples, peaches and pears.  We bought home a couple of boxes of apples, and he’s given away lots of fruit to many friends and neighbors.

The views have changed.  When you look towards the river from the front porch, you see a new cemetery.

When I was growing up, that used to be a hayfield. Many a summer I helped pick up bales of hay, then stack them in the barn!  The bottom part of this pasture was also used for hay, but is flooded with water that’s backed up from a dam built after I left home.

And while you can still see the little Methodist church I attended when I was growing up…

It’s no longer in use.  So many people moved out of that area, mostly due to being bought out by the power company, that the church was closed down a few years ago.  There just weren’t enough people attending to make it worth the upkeep.

The area has certainly changed a lot, even just in the years since I moved away the second time. I’m afraid it’s true… you can’t go home again!

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One of the places we visited while in West Virginia last week was the State Wildlife Center.  It’s located in Upshur County in north-central West Virginia, 12 miles south of Buckhannon, near French Creek. I don’t recall ever visiting it before, and The Farmer had never been in that part of West Virginia, so we decided it would be a great trip, and off we went, with Dad in tow.

The center is a zoological facility operated by the Wildlife Resources Section of the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, and displaying native and introduced state wildlife.

The first thing to see are the elk and Canadian geese. They’re off in a different direction than the rest of the wildlife. We drove up to the parking lot and walked down to their pen. I would guess from the noise the bull elk was making that it’s rutting season.  He was bugling often while we were there, as you can hear in this short little video:

Elk (Cervus elaphus), also known as wapiti (from the Shawnee word waapiti, meaning white rump), are one of the largest species of deer in the world and one of the largest mammals in North America.  The particular male was quite cranky and protective, taking great exception to me getting close to the fence to try taking a picture through the holes in the chain links:

From the elk area we drove to the main parking lot. The rest of the wildlife can be seen along a 1.25 mile trail through a mature hardwood forest. We picked a good time to go, as the leaves were fall colors, and since it was a cool week day, we were the only people there.

There is a big enclosure for otters, but they were hiding out of sight when we went by. That was kind of disappointing, as I love watching otters play. They also had a few bison, but they were so far off we couldn’t see them very well even though they are some of the largest animals in North America, and can weigh well over a ton each.

There used to be an estimated 300 million buffalo roaming the land in 1865, but they were hunted and killed in such huge numbers that by 1889 only 541 remained. Their numbers have increased now, but they are still found only in zoos, on private ranches or on public lands.

The mountain lion (Felis concolor) wasn’t even that lucky. They were totally exterminated in West Virginia by 1900. This big cat is known locally as the cougar, panther, painter or puma. Weighing 80-200 pounds, with the males a third again as large as the females, they can get up to 8 feet long.

The mountain lion is known as one of the most elusive of all the world’s cats, so this is probably the only way we’ll ever see one!

Next door to the mountain lion was a pen with white-tailed deer.  That seems a little mean, putting an unreachable dinner right next to their pen.  On the other side of the deer lived several gray wolves (Canis lupis).  It’s a wonder the deer don’t have a nervous breakdown, being placed between two breeds of carnivores like that!

Gray wolves were originally found throughout North America, but now can only be seen in wilderness areas of forest and tundra. They actually help improve populations of the wildlife they prey on by culling the sick and weaker animals.

We also saw a bald eagle, a couple of red foxes, and a couple of gray foxes, along with a wild turkey, and ring-necked pheasants.  There was a bobcat with those neat tufted ears, but it wouldn’t cooperate and turn around for a picture.  The bobcat lives throughout West Virginia, and although not often seen, is often living surprisingly close to people.  It’s considered a valuable wildlife species because it hunts destructive rodents and eats carrion.

On down the trail we saw red-tailed hawks, a golden eagle, kestrels, barred owls, and a bunch of raccoons. There was a pen for a striped skunk, but I think it was in the den sleeping. At any rate, we never saw it.  What we did see was a lovely great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), and because of the “hoo, hoo, hoo” call, commonly known as a “hoot owl”.

Once again, they placed a predator by a forever out of reach dinner. It seems that great horned owls are the skunks only serious predator. I’d like to know how the owl captures the skunk without getting sprayed with that noxious odor of theirs!  Maybe it’s because great horned owls are also capable of totally silent flight, so their prey doesn’t know the owl is coming until it’s too late too run.  They’re an impressive bird in many ways.

Oh yes, and The WV Wildlife Center is also home of French Creek Freddie, a cousin of groundhog Punxsutawney Phil.  We didn’t see him either, but then, it wasn’t Groundhog Day!

They also had fishers (Martes pennanti), a shy animal that used to live in the Appalachian forests, but due to trapping and loss of habitat, no longer lives wild in West Virginia.

The black bear (Ursus americanus) was near the end of the trail.  They were pacing along the fence and quite active.  However, this picture is of a still-life sort of black bear:

He “lives” in the gift shop at the end of the trail.  His name is Jack, and he was a lifelong resident of the wildlife center.  He is believed to be the largest black bear to have lived in West Virginia, weighing about 700 pounds at prime weight.

Beside the bears on the trail was a wild boar, an animal that was introduced into West Virginia in the late 1960s. They can weigh up to 400 pounds. Huge!

And at the very end of the trail was a pen with several coyotes (Canis latrans).  Coyotes are a member of the dog family, and certainly look the part.

They prefer to munch up on rodents or other small animals, but are great opportunists and will eat anything, animal or vegetable, it doesn’t matter.  They have a hefty 50% mortality rate, but still manage to thrive, adapting and surviving in all kinds of environments.

Besides all the penned animals, there were also squirrels, chipmunks, birds and other wildlife in the forest.  All in all, the West Virginia State Wildlife Center a pretty neat place to visit.

And while I no longer live in West Virginia, I still think of it as part of MY World.

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It’s good to be back on the farm.  Traveling is fun, but it’s also tiring, and after a while you’re ready for home.  Maybe it makes us appreciate home more to be away for a while!

The first part of our trip took us to Huntington, West Virginia.  Please note, that is NOT “western” Virginia, but a whole different state.  If you wonder why I make a point of that, you would be surprised how many people want to know if I grew up near the beach, or other sorts of questions that make it clear they think I meant I’m from a part of Virginia.  There’s no beach there people!  WEST Virginia is all about mountains. 

Not the big ones like the Rockies, mind you, but a gentler sort of mountains called the Appalachians.

Of course, they’re tall enough to have some great gorges, one of which we passed through, The New River Gorge.  We were a week late for this year’s event, Bridge Day, but they don’t jump while the train is going by anyway, so we wouldn’t have been able to see that. 

Bridge Day is the largest extreme sports event in the world.  It’s held annually on the third Saturday in October in Fayette County, West Virginia. This year there were more than 155,000 people there, with more than 400 BASE jumpers, and 22 teams of climbers signed up to rappel from its sides.  It’s a BIG deal!

We passed several other interesting landmarks while traveling on The New River Train.  Besides the New River Gorge Bridge, we could see downtown Charleston and the State Capitol building with its’ gold dome, WVU Tech in Montgomery, Kanawha Falls, Hawks Nest Dam and bridge, Stretcher Neck Tunnel, Sandstone Falls, and more.

Of course, no trip to the southern part of the USA would be complete without a glimpse of kudzu.

Thankfully, the kudzu does die back during cold weather, or the entire south might be covered over with it.  You have to be careful during summer though, cause if you stand still too long, you might become kudzu fodder.  That creeping green covers everything in its’ path!

The New River Train travels from Huntington to Hinton, where we got off for a couple of hours. They have a street fair there with food stands, arts and crafts, entertainment, a railroad museum, and my personal favorite, a book sale by the local library. I managed to limit myself to three books.

They also have rides by horse and carriage.

The Farmer wanted to know why I didn’t get the buggy in the picture.  Simple.  I wasn’t interested in the buggy, just the horse!  I love these big horses.

On the way home we had dinner on the train.  It’s neat to watch the scenery go by while your meal is being served.  At one point on the way back, we could briefly see part of the train as it went over a bridge.

There wasn’t as much color in the leaves as we’d hoped for, but it was still pretty.  Of course, these pictures don’t do it justice.  It’s hard to get clear pictures through a dirty glass window on a train that is zipping along the tracks lickety-split!

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