September 24, 2012
Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze
This past Saturday was a typical autumn day, for which I’m grateful.
I had a wedding to attend in Romney, West Virginia. My youngest cousin married
his college sweetheart in a wonderfully simple ceremony. The bride was lovely
and the groom ever the handsomest boy in the room. Excuse me - young man. It
brought us all together to celebrate new beginnings and strengthen established
ties.
If you’ve read more than one of my stories, you’ve likely
figured out I love my neighboring state - wonderful, wild, beautiful West
Virginia. So taking a two-hour drive through the mountains wasn’t a hardship -
even with my mom and stepdad in the back seat.
We - my partner, the parental units, and myself - rolled
onto the Interstate and I realized I should have made a John Denver CD to play.
Not that the late Mr. Denver is my preferred driving music, but my
seventy-something mother doesn’t have the same appreciation of Chad Kroeger’s
ass in black leather pants. What she says about his singing isn’t printable,
even by me. But I digress… John Denver would have been the perfect accompaniment
for the drive.
Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, Mountain Mama
Take me home, country roads
I remember the first time I heard Take Me Home, County Roads
on the radio. Back in 1971, FM was in its infancy and so I heard it on the
scratchy AM bands. It was back in the day when only my oldest cousin had a car.
It was something every kid on the school bus knew the words to and would all
sing along with when it played on the radio. Even the bus driver would join in
on that one. What I couldn’t know at
such a young age was how the words of the song captured the beauty and
sentiment an era almost passed.
All my memories,
gathered 'round her
Miners' Lady, stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye
My country heritage means a lot to me. I love where I am in
my life. In me is the bridge to the past for my young cousins even as I
celebrate their view of a future just begun. I’m the keeper of heirlooms and
the teller of old stories. I’m the one they look to when they need to know just
how they’re related to so-and-so. I know what they will miss out on as this our
crazy, modern world absorbs the old ways, and they will do things I can’t even
dream of and blaze paths unimagined. These children of my heart will conquer
the future while I look forward to some day being “retired” and spending time
traveling on the winding country roads with old music blaring out of the
speakers.
And that’s just the way it should be.
I hear her voice, in the morning hour she calls me
The radio reminds me of my home far away
And drivin' down the road I get the feeling
That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday…
KC
This date marks the anniversary of my father's death. I've written about this day before. If you've lost a beloved parent you recognize your life is suddenly divided in two - the before and the after. I've lived longer in the after than the before and, for me, the time before is marked by halcyon days. 
