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One can't describe the feeling of catching a wild West Virginia Trout with a rod you built and a fly you tied.
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Saturday, December 5, 2009
It will change. To me, it's the same...it's home.
8:41 AM | Posted by
David |
Not far from the county seat of Raleigh County is a small burg called Beaver. Founded in the the early 1800's by the two Prince brothers, it has gone by other names. First, Oxley and then Glen Hedricks. Beaver lies along two creeks, Beaver and Little Beaver. They join near the center of town at what was once Todd's Hardware. Beaver centered around the Ritter Lumber company where both my father and grandfather were carpenters. Ritter timbered the the local water sheds along with the areas along the Piney. The railroad ran through the community, crossing the creek at Glen Morgan and running through Blue Jay to the C&O dam. From there, on to the southern coal fields. Several mines were active in the area. Raleigh Number 7 was behind my house on the ridge and Pimmerton along the Table Rock ridge area. The landscape was scattered with various strip mine ventures from time to time. Beaver had it's own movie theater where my brother Andy was the projectionist at one time. Twenty five cent matinees were in easy reach of most of us, often obtained from soft drink bottle returns. Beaver had its own grade school, which my whole family attended and fed the population of Shady Spring High School. I was the last attending class of the old high school and first graduation class of the new in 1967.
A lot of the locals worked for the railroad or in the mines. I can still see in my mind the miners walking up the road with their hard hats and blackened faces, contrasted by the round, shiny dinner buckets they carried. These men held my respect then and still do. Often they would walk in the yard and stop and talk to my parents about what was going on in the area, or how their garden was doing. It was nothing uncommon for them to leave with a hand full of fresh tomatoes or a bag of green beans.
I spent my younger days fishing Beaver Creek every chance I'd get. I knew every rock, and every hole from the airport road to the Beaver Block company. I'd ride my bike to the old site of the Blue Jay lumber company and fish all the spots that held such a secret then.
My grandfather had a cabinet shop in Beaver. To most, he was known as Uncle Charley. I used to watch with amazement at his craftsmanship and the monstrous saw blades men would bring to him to be sharpened. I can still see him walking from the shop to the house at dinner time, brushing off the saw dust and his so well known cough. I never knew my grandfather to not wear his fedora hat when he worked. So often I'd venture to his shop, and he'd hand me a hand full of nails and small hammer and scrap piece of wood..."Drive 'em straight, David".
Beaver had it's grocery stores and markets. Southern produce was always fresh at Ransom's market. I'd walk in with a list my mother had given me and knew I was going to be greeted by the owner as "Little Ray"...I only knew his name as Chawback and he had grown up in Beaver with my father. He never failed to look at me and tell me that as long as I lived my dad would never die. At the time I didn't really know what he meant, but it referred to looking so much like my father.
Beaver at one time was a tight community. There was one church that the Baptist and Methodist shared on odd and even Sundays. My grandfather was an elder in the Baptist church and I still have a photo where he and other men from Beaver were burning a bank note that was paid off for the new Beaver Baptist Church. Southern WV culture was very strong then and the men and deacons sat on the same Pew. My father was a Sunday School teacher and so well liked by all of those in his class. Many years after his passing I have had those that attended his class tell me how much he meant to them. So many of the coal camp homes in Beaver were built by my father as well as those in the Beckley area.
When I got older, I began to venture out to areas new to me as young pup. I began to hunt the ridges and mountain tops around Beaver. I had a spot a good hike from my house that had a large rock outcropping. The rocks were on a steep bank right at the top. Far below ran Piney Creek on it's way to New River and the railroad. I could sit on these rocks and it would put me right up among the Hickory tree tops below. Hidden against them, I was in a perfect place to squirrel hunt. I have spent so many fall days sitting on these rocks and counting the coal cars as they made their way from Raleigh to Prince. I'd buy my shells usually 5 or 6 at a time at Lilly's Hardware. I learned at a very early age not to waste a shot. Often on the hike I'd kick up a rabbit or a grouse. Like a cat with a captured mouse I was so proud to show them to my mother when I got home. Little did I know, it was a coming of age ritual I was experiencing. It was at that time I formed a love for autumn in West Virginia. Every color you can imagine would line these ridges and hollows.
One Saturday morning, I took the hike to the ridge to hunt. I could hear the noise well before I got to where I was going. I came to the ridge where the rocks were and I was, all of sudden, lost. The hickory grove and Red Oak were gone. Instead, it was bulldozers and cutting machines getting ready for a strip mine. A man approached me and asked me my name. I told him and he asked if Ray Akers was my father. He proceeded to tell me I couldn't hunt there anymore. They were taking timber to get ready for the mine. Funny how certain things, after all this time, stays with you. He told me his name was John Plumbly and to tell my dad he said hello. I told my father that afternoon about the meeting. He went on to tell me what a good man John was. To me, I hated him for cutting down my trees. After all they were mine...I didn't care who owned them. They were mine.
The summer I turned 14, my mother approached me one afternoon while I was painting the steps to my grandfather's house. She had been to the store, and Henry Lilly asked if I would be interested in a job. I went to talk to Henry and he told me he needed a stock boy and someone to help around the store. Little did I know I was starting, basically, a full time job. My hunting and fishing time was no longer, except on Sunday afternoon after church. I soon made friends with the older men that worked for Henry. It didn't take long to be part of my life, other than school. Once I got my drivers license, my job was delivery and seeing a part of Raleigh County and it's culture I didn't know.
Beaver was more than just a place in my mind. It was also the hometown of my friends. Kids I started first grade with. Kids that soon became as much like family as anything else. These were kids like Bobby and Jody, who I shared so much with and thought the world of. Boys you played ball with and felt when growing up there would be no separation. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. There were families you soon learned to care about and admire. These were the people that waved and always stopped to asked how you were doing, or how your parents were. These were families and children with a mountain and southern West Virginia heritage, a common matter we all shared.
Beaver was a town where on a cool evening you could sit on the pipe fence rail at Ruth Evans' house and just watch the cars go by. Never a fear of trouble and problems from others. Beaver was a town where a walk to the Kook Kup was an adventure and always ending with one of Cora's cool treats. Beaver was an all-American town where on the fourth of July, you could hear the bootleg firecrackers and bottle rockets going off. Flags draped the front porches and picnics everywhere. Nestled in this valley between two ridges, it looked like a post card from New England with the church steeples and the creek flowing through. I'm sure there are those that lived there that didn't see if through my eyes...or my mind. I'm sure there are those that couldn't wait to leave and never returned. Perhaps I took the time to see it as it was. On a visit to my mothers in the late 70's I drove up the top of the ridge behind her house. I stopped and walked out into the field where I could look down on Beaver. It had changed. It had grown. The vacant field now had a Kroger's and the airport road was now an exit off I-64. Fast food was there where at one time only Cora's Kook Kup offered a hot dog. I could see from the old High School to the bend at Glen Morgan. It had changed...but I still could see the houses where my friends lived. I could see where I went to church and where a summer's afternoon you'd find me fishing.
I could see the grocery store where I worked, and I could see the house where I was raised. It looked different. But it was still the same...it was my home.
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