This immigrant found a home

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Added: Tue. May 08, 2012 9:51am
Posted in: Living

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I was born in Northeastern Pennsylvania and spent the first eleven years of my life there among my extended family (and it was extended). Then my parents moved to Fairmont, West Virginia and took me with them. It was there that I spend my teens in junior high (now called middle school) and high school. Maybe it was because my brain was a bit more developed and was able to retain more of my memories living there that I still identify Fairmont as home. This in spite of a now failing memory and in spite of leaving the town immediately after graduating from high school and after my parents moved some 18 miles away.

I still choke up when I hear John Denver sing Going Home, Country Roads. I still get a warm glow when I think of the place where I took giant steps on the path to adulthood. All the friends I had during my school years are still my friends today. Meeting with them each fall is like taking a trip in a time machine, taking me back to the place we call home.

The girls I loved and lost were lessons in building a strong relationship. The teachers who labored to instill some knowledge in me remain with me today. Perhaps not all they taught stuck, but the idea of having to discipline myself and put forth the effort to gain knowledge remains. The stores my parents took me shopping are long gone but the memories of those trips make me more tolerant when I now go shopping. Like then, I try to make each trip to the mall a kind of adventure, not something to be dreaded.

I had a part time job during my high school years at what now would be called a small Mom and Pop place, Pat’s Greentop Restaurant. It was there I learned that if you apply yourself and not fear hard work, you could advance. I started by peeling 40 – 50 pounds of potatoes then cut them for french-fries. When that task was done it was washing dishes and mopping the floors. In time, I was promoted to waiter and ultimately given the okay to work the cash register, an awesome responsibility. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those treacherous winding hills where I learned how to drive. Having mastered the ability to start moving a car forward with a manual transmission while stopped on a hill I think made me qualified to handle anything the road could throw in my way.

Fairmont was and has become in my mind an idyllic town of 25,000 where I grew and flourished. The adults then in my life guided me. My friends and classmates supported me. The adults now are gone, but my friends remain, as steadfast as they were those many years ago. I’m not quite sure when during my school years I left Pennsylvania behind and became a West Virginian, but I did. Fortunately, the state seemed to accept me as one of its own and for that I am thankful. If someone calls me a hillbilly, I let it pass as coming from someone who doesn’t understand how special hillbillies are. If I am called a mountaineer, I quietly accept the compliment.

So now I am in some ways an immigrant; Pennsylvania is my Motherland, but West Virginia is my home. It is a home of contrasts – beautiful forests and eye sore mines, friendly people and often mistrusting people, mountain tops and deep gorges, quiet county towns and towns defined by Wal-Mart’s. But in spite of all that, when I do return to West Virginia (visits too rare I fear), I go with the words of that song ringing in my ears.

Country Roads, take me home

To the place I belong

West Virginia, mountain mama

Take me home, country roads