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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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Sunday, December 20, 2009
Snow storm in December...
5:17 AM | Posted by
David |
The National Weather Service had been predicting a winter storm to move into West Virginia all week. I never understand why so many seem to never take those matters seriously. They were right and starting after dark Friday night the 18th, the rain turned to snow. It's beautiful here on the river when it snows like this. The pines and bamboo soon cover and create a beautiful color contrast of green and white. It's especially nice when it happens this close to Christmas.
There was little to do other than watch it fall and build. I made sure the squirrels and birds had plenty to eat right outside my dining area windows so I could watch them. Once again, I have created a monster I have named Fatso. He has to be the biggest squirrel I have ever seen. It's nothing unusual for him to plop down on his behind with his tummy hanging over the edge of his feet and devour a whole ear of corn in one sitting. How dare any of the others come near it. He's instantly in a rage and chases them off. They tend to only get the crumbs when he heads back to his nest in the big Maple tree on the river bank, for a nap I'm sure. He's getting so fat that he no longer makes the journey from his nest to the deck via the tree limbs. He simply can't make the jumps any longer.The snow storm hit as predicted and the southern part of the state has been under siege since Saturday morning. Snow levels coming in from all over the state has some places seeing as much as 30 inches. The turnpike was closed and travelers stranded along the famous toll road for as much as 20 hours.
As I sat at the table watching the circus on my deck, I started to think about a time I too was like so many of those traveling this weekend. I was stationed in Cheyenne, Wyoming, at Francis E Warren AFB. I was granted a leave over Christmas and decided to make the journey back to West Virginia so my wife and I could be with family. One of the men in my photo unit lived in Baltimore and was having a problem getting flight connections home. He offered to help on gas if he could ride as far as Columbus, Ohio. We left Cheyenne in the afternoon and headed east. Conversation flowed and the miles flew by with ease. I made the trip from Cheyenne to Parkersburg in 24 hours. We stopped for gas and eats and that was it. Actually it was a good trip considering the distance.
New Years day my passenger flew into Parkersburg and off we went on what we hoped was to be an uneventful trip back to Wyoming. It was uneventfull until I got to Iowa. Late that night, it started to snow and blow. Temperatures dropped like a rock and driving at times was miserable to say the least. Close to daylight, I stopped at an exit in Ashland, Nebraska, for breakfast and gas.
When I went to leave, I couldn't move forward or backward. The guy who was riding with me had grown a long handlebar mustache while on leave. With my wife behind the wheel, and he and I pushing, we finally got the car moving again. In the process, his mustache froze and when he went to wipe the frost off, it broke . We moved to a Phillips 66 station across the road. We never moved again for two days. The owner told us we could park under the canopy of a drive-in that was closed for the season. It didn't take long for the service station to fill up with others. Soon the word came the interstate was closed and we were stranded there. It was known as the New Years Day Blizzard of 1971. Thousands were stranded along the interstate and had to be rescued by the National Guard. The chill factor at times was -40 below zero and snow accumulations well over 3 feet in areas. The open country of the Nebraska plains was perfect for drifting snow at times well over 6 feet. We slept where we could, along with others. The owner of the service station went out of his way to make us as comfortable as we could possibly be in a situation such as that. When the road finally opened, it was one lane east bound and one lane west bound. The snow was piled so high, you couldn't see the other side of the highway. It took us a day and a half to make it back to Cheyenne. It's most definitely something I'll never forget.
As I sat this morning and watched the snow falling, I heard the news stories of all that are stranded and remembered a time I too knew that helpless feeling. It's so peaceful to look out and see a blanket of snow, the limbs all covered, and that strange silence that comes with it all. There's something about all of this that gives coffee a totally different flavor and effect. The fire in the fireplace seems warmer and more welcoming, and definitely a new meaning to "a long winter's nap".
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tis the season once again
6:32 PM | Posted by
David |
Winter paid the river a visit today. The air temp was just above 22 degrees with snow flurries all day. The winter sky I'm so familiar with was predominate for sure. It was a good day to build a nice fire, make a pot of coffee and simply relax. Most of my woodworking projects for Christmas are done and I wanted to take advantage of a day like this. 38 years ago today my daughter was born. Oh, how I so well remember that day. I was stationed at Shaw AFB in Sumter, SC. It was a long labor, and the nurse had sent me home, telling me there was nothing I could do and to get out of her way. I had just gotten ready to sit down and relax a few minutes when the phone ran. I was summoned to the hospital. I hurried to get ready and when I opened the door I had two surprises waiting on me. One was a fog so thick you couldn't even see the car. The other was our Santee Pointer named Trixie took out after a possum that was in the yard. Not what I needed. I finally got the dog back in and then faced the trip to the base. The fog was so thick I used a flashlight with the door open to follow the berm of the road.
That night I was given one of the greatest gifts a man can receive. I have been so proud of her since that very first moment. Nothing has changed. She is a beautiful mother in her own right, now with a doll baby of a granddaughter. Just as all three are to me.
As I went from one small project to the other today, I put my Christmas CD's on. I'm sure everyone has their favorites from the old standards of years gone by to even some of the new modern versions. A couple of years ago I came across a Christmas special on PBS. It was called a Christmas from Dublin. The group is four ladies by the name of the "Celtic Women". I honestly think that their voices are what angels will sound like. I'm partial to Celtic music anyway and this just captured my mind and heart. But one of my all time favorites is John Denver and the Muppets Christmas Together Album. If you should get the chance to either pick the album up or view some of the cuts on Youtube, it's more than worth it.
There's just something about a cold December day, with the way the sun sets at dusk that brings so many thoughts to my mind. I was thinking today how rich I am as a man. For I have seen that special look in my children's eyes on Christmas morning. It's just something one can't put a price on and I will never forget.
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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