As I sat on the sofa in the hotel room looking at a map of West Virginia, it became clear to me how close we were to Buckhannon, Jim Fidler’s ancestral home.
For those of you unfamiliar with Jim, he is a composer/producer/singer/songwriter extraordinaire from Newfoundland. And a good friend. Jim produced Newfoundland's first podcast - Republic of Avalon Radio.
“Let’s take a detour down to Buckhannon,” I suggested to Vic. “we can call Jim’s podcast ROAR line from Buckhannon and surprise him!”
Vic reluctantly agreed to the detour – Buckhannon was almost 50 miles away in the wrong direction. But he set the GPS to find the best way to the place and away we went. As we got farther away from Morgantown, the scene before us more resembled the widely-held view of West Virginia – hilly, small houses clinging to a cleared spot on the side of a hill little rivulets running willy-nilly through the woods and cleared spaces, lots of cows, some sheep and an inordinate amount of llamas also greeted us on our trek. Buckhannon is in the heart of mining country in West Virginia, near the site of the recent mining tragedy where all but one miner died. Mountains, mountains and more mountains greeted us as we wound our way south on Route 19. On the announcement board of a local church was a play on words that was very fitting for our times. Rather than “God Bless America,” the usual slogan, was “America, Bless God.” Sounds good to me! |
