"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
22 July 2003Musings in the mountainsStill in Beckley West Virginia is one of those few states whose population peaked years ago and has never quite rebounded, and I'm really not sure why. Admittedly, mining isn't what it used to be, if it ever was, and some people are convinced for no good reason that the place is full of slack-jawed yokels. The state's balance sheet, though, doesn't seem all that negative: Plus: Incredibly gorgeous, almost every conceivable type of climate, located near almost everything east of the Mississippi, devoted to friends and family, scary roads. Minus: Desperately poor, dependent on fluctuating tourist dollars, the aforementioned yokel image, scary roads. West Virginians are, I must point out, proud of their own: when PFC Jessica Lynch returned home today, every radio station I could pick up south of Charleston was carrying the ceremonies live, and it was the lead story on all the TV newscasts I was able to check. And I don't blame them one bit for that response. But they resent the sort of stereotyping that prevails in ostensibly more sophisticated areas. From an editorial in today's Beckley Register-Herald complaining about the proposed CBS "reality-show" version of The Beverly Hillbillies:
City slickers would search our neck of the woods for a family to send to Beverly Hills for a year, to live in the big-city lap of luxury while the cameras roll.
Ideally, the casting crew is looking for a mother and father — known in these here parts as Maw and Paw — in their 40s with at least two children. Grandma and Grandpa are welcome too. Must be willing to load up the truck and move to Beverly. Hills, that is. "We're looking for people who have country smarts, but maybe not so much sophistication," a casting agent, Wendy Cassileth, said last year while on the hunt in Logan County. Barefoot and toothless should only help the resume, we presume. It's an idea that's pure, bubblin' crude. And I don't blame them one bit for that response, either. Of course, I live in a state that is often similarly mocked. One feature you haven't seen this year is the Toll Report, mainly because up through yesterday, I hadn't paid any tolls. This afternoon, though, I forked over $2.50 to the collectors on the West Virginia Turnpike, which, perhaps surprisingly, is not named after Robert C. Byrd. (Well, you can't have everything, not even in West Virginia.) |