Post by: Susan Chipley
Town: Morgantown
Website: Chez Mama

I’m sure most people reading this have heard of Jesco White, the “Dancing Outlaw.” His father, D. Ray White, was a legendary mountain dancer. Jesco aspired to be the same, and he has been to some extent. Jesco has lived a difficult life, and struggled to overcome poverty and addiction. He has become reasonably famous, as he has been featured on two documentaries made for Public Television. Sometimes I think that many of the Hollywood-types have exploited Jesco and used him to perpetuate the typical West Virginia and Appalachian stereotypes–something that we West Virginians have to continue to fight to overcome.

Cousin Wildweed wrote a song about Jesco, “The Ballad of Jesco White”. Here’s a video of that song, performed by Peckerwood. I’m not sure if it is actually Jesco dancing in the video or not, as the face is a bit blurry. His moves definitely remind me of Jesco, though!

Post by: Bryan Stealey
Town: Morgantown
Website: Reversing the Numbness

I love music, as anyone who ever visits my Friday Music posts will know. (If you’re the same way, consider swinging by RtN and helping make a weekly play list. It’s an open invitation.) While I don’t make it out to see local live music like I used to, I still like thinking about some of the bands I was into in college in the early to mid-’90s. I love when I find traces of this music on the internet.

Here’s a video of the Joint Chiefs from 1995. These guys were hugely popular back in the day and just did a little three-show reunion tour in Morgantown, Charleston, and Huntington (I believe) a few weeks ago.

I was very stoked to find out that Steve Rubin, the guitar player from rock-hip-hoppers Circle 6, has posted all of Circle 6’s recordings online at Eight Track Mind. Go listen! With Steve on guitar and the incomparable Billy Resh on the mic, Circle 6 always put on an awesome show in a similar vein to Rage Against the Machine (but with a little more rap). At one point Steve and I had a big plan to get some guys together and do a show covering both albums of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, but we never did get around to it.

Eric Lewis and I did play a lot of Pink Floyd, but it was his gigs with his band Once Hush that I remember the best. He was my roommate and the guys in the band were some of my best college friends, so I probably saw this group a hundred times. I never felt like they got the credit they deserved, because they were all fantastic musicians and they wrote really good pop songs. You can hear some of their stuff on the Once Hush MySpace page. Eric and singer/guitarist Greg Riordan are still making great music.

So many other bands, I can hardly remember them all. Rasta Rafiki. Jolly Gargoyle. The Karl Shuman Band. Lester James and the White Flames. The Recipe. The Groove Tubes. The Tide (featuring Eric Hopper). Todd Burge (who’s still the pride of West Virginia) and his bands 63 Eyes and Triple Shot. Brian Porterfield (also still going strong with his band The Love Me Knots). Sandra Black.

That’s just the beginning of the massive collection of quality bands that graced Morgantown in the early to mid-’90s. Dozens — probably hundreds — of bands have come and gone through this town since, and I missed out on most of them. I think I got to see The Argument once before they broke up, and the same goes for The Emergency, though I think they’re still together. I’ve seen one-man punk band J. Marinelli a couple of times, and Billy Matheney and the Frustrations as well. I’m sure there are excellent bands in this town I don’t even know about.

I’ll end with one more Youtube video of one Morgantown’s most world-renowned bands, Karma to Burn. They’re no longer together, but their legacy of instrumental rock lives on in fans across the globe.

Post by: Susan Chipley
Town: Morgantown
Website: Chez Mama

When I noticed that Bryan had chosen “Structures” as a topic for PWV, I instantly knew what I wanted to write about. Moorefield is in Hardy County, about 12 miles from Petersburg, my hometown. I have spent lots of time in Moorefield, as my grandparents lived there and I had many aunts and uncles who lived there as well. My great-great-great grandfather, Captain John J. Chipley, built two beautiful homes right in Moorefield. He was Captain of the Company H, 25th VA Volunteer Infantry and Company B, 62nd VA Volunteer Infantry for the Confederate army during the Civil War. He built his first house, which is on Rt. 55 (Virginia Ave. in Moorefiled). I absolutely love this house. It is beautiful.

The second house is on the corner of Winchester Ave. and Chipley Lane. It was built in 1905, and remained in the Chipley family until 1970. My dad grew up in this house, and when he was in college my grandparents decided it was too much house for the two of them. They sold it to a friend, Kenneth Chambers, who operated the house as a funeral home. (He and his wife lived in the house as well.) My grandparents bought a house directly behind it. I learned to ride a bike in the parking lot of the funeral home, and played in and around the house often. In the mid-80s, the Chambers sold the funeral home, and it has been operating as the Elmore-Chambers funeral home since then.

Moorefield is a very nice, small West Virginia town. It is full of large, beautiful homes. Many of them pre-date the Civil War. Most of the homes are very well-kept. Every year, during the last weekend of September, Moorefield has Heritage Weekend. It is a celebration of the history of Hardy County. Many of the homes are open for tours, with guides who know the history of the homes. It is very cool, and I would recommend a trip to Moorefield for Heritage Weekend. They always have a great quilt show, Civil War re-enactments, and a large arts and crafts show where artisans from all over West Virginia show and sell their goods.

Post by: Bryan Stealey
Town: Morgantown
Website: Reversing the Numbness

Last weekend was the first meeting of the Morgantown chapter of Grateful Dads, a group of fathers who get together with their kids and go on hikes, have picnics, etc. It was a small group, with only three dads and four kids, but you have to start somewhere, right? We had a really good time and will be meeting again in June. If anyone is interested in hiking with us in June, contact me at bryan@picturewestvirginia.com.

Our first get-together was at the Virgin Hemlock Trail, near Coopers Rock. It was probably as tough a trail as we’d want to tackle with small children. Thanks to some relatively minor human intervention, we were able to make the full loop. I love untouched wilderness as much as the next guy, but it’s cool that some trails have been made to be family-friendly, thanks to some tasteful, well-placed structures.

Annelies and Jude make the climb

No bridge, no cross for the wee ones

Chris and Alec make it across

Post By: Rebecca Burch
Town: Spencer
Website: Carpe You Some Diem

Every year, as the heat of the summer begins to fade and the leaves just barely start changing their color, my thoughts turn to festivals — the Black Walnut Festival, the Pumpkin Festival, Bridge Day, and countless others. My favorite is the Black Walnut Festival, in my hometown of Spencer, WV. RVs and cars line the streets for about a week before the festival, and all the traffic is a nightmare in our tiny town, but I don’t care. I live within walking distance (straight uphill to get home, but walking distance, nonetheless) to downtown, so I can go without a car for a weekend.

I love festivals because they are a celebration of each area’s personal flavor. Though the rides, the craft booths, the parades, the food stands, and the activities are roughly the same at each festival, they are all drastically different because of the people who make it happen. The real gold is in the local performers. Come to the Black Walnut Festival, and you’re likely to hear Jake Krack, a fiddler whose skill was beyond most adults’, even before he was old enough to speak into the microphone (and has only gotten better since)! Visit the art exhibits and you’ll find some amazing pieces by local artists Margaret and Peter Arabia. See the local talent at the rest of the festivals, and you’ll be amazed at how diverse our talents are as West Virginians, and how our rich heritage has colored even the youngest of our artists and performers — not to mention our craftspeople, farmers, and other talented folks whose handiwork gets the spotlight during festival time.

I love the exhibits, but I can’t think about festivals without thinking about carnival rides. I used to dream of carnival time year-round as a kid, and I just couldn’t wait to climb into one of these machines. And though I’ve never been trapped on one, injured, or experienced anything bad on one, for some reason I have developped this fear of carnival rides. I can stomach the craziest rollercoaster you can show me, but put me on the Spider or the Zipper, and you’re in for a fight. I can remember being consoled by my then-four-year-old eldest son on a ride called the “Blackjack” — he was patting my knee with his tiny hand and saying, “Mommy, you’re going to be fine. I’ll make sure you don’t fall out.” Of course, I have never lived this down. No matter how many scrambler rides I complete, I will always be the World’s Biggest Chicken for experiencing sheer terror on a ride
that my four-year-old found no problem with.

As much fear as I have toward riding these rides, I love to stand in the middle of all of them and watch my kids play. The best time is when the sun is just beginning to set and the carnival lights start to turn on. These machines are really works of art, with their old-fashioned paint jobs and intricate lighting designs. Of course, I love photographing them, too, and the more I learn about photographing lighted, moving objects in varying amounts of atmospheric light, the more I enjoy the challenge of getting just the right shot.

Black Walnut Festival Ride

So here’s another excellent post I missed, thanks to my email gaffe. Sorry, Allclick — and thanks for the submission. I really like how you went with better and worse.

Post by: Allclick
Town: Hurricane
Website: http://www.allclick.blogspot.com

About one year behind schedule, Putnam County finally entered the 21st century this April by opening its first Wal-mart. Yes, the mega-super-ultra-all-selling-all-knowing-hyper mart institution is now available for everyone who had to drive those 20 minutes to Nitro. Ever since construction began I thought to myself, Will this be better for the community or worse? Here were some of my thoughts/suspicions.

Better:

Well, a big honking superstore needs people to work there, right? So more jobs in the area. Wal-mart say they are giving a lot of money away to local charities and organizations. I don’t disbelieve them, I just can’t verify that. Other stores are moving in near Wal-mart. I look forward to trying the new Rocky Top Mountain Pizza.

I’ll have to spend less on gas to get to Wal-mart. The prices are usually cheaper than Kroger. Kroger is now a lot nicer to shop at, as everyone is at Wal-mart.

So, a lot of benefits on a personal level and a community level. But didn’t I just see a documentary about how Wal-mart moves into a community and then all the smaller stores just close and die? Hmm.

Worse:

Potentially some of the smaller stores in Hurricane could close. There are a couple of family-owned superstores that probably aren’t too happy about the competition. The roads have become a little more congested now at the interstate exit there.

Yes, a new Dollar Tree moved in alongside Wal-mart … but to make up for this, they closed the other one over in Teays Valley. Which was nicer.

It’s a Wal-mart. Which means to most shoppers that they should ignore any etiquette that they have learned throughout life and just treat the place like their own playground. The parking up there still kinda sucks. I have no idea how that happened.

It’s a tough call right now. I can only see the roads getting worse and the other stores struggling more as time goes on. For now I’m pleased to have a convenient, cheap shopping location. Whether I’ll be quite as content as I line up in traffic everyday at the interstate I can’t tell you.

Holy crap! I just found out that the submit@picturewestvirginia.com email address wasn’t forwarding right and I missed a few posts! Sorry, guys — poorly done. So this week, in addition to the ‘Structures’ theme, I’m going to catch up on the posts from Weeks 1 and 2 that I missed. I’ve got it all sorted now, so it won’t happen again.

Post by: MoneyTastesBad
Town: Morgantown
Website: The 30-Year-Old Freshman

Last summer, my wife, daughter and I went on vacation to Cape Cod and Maine. We saw some beautiful sites. Nantucket Island, the sunset at Race Point which is the very end of the Cape. We walked on the National seashore. Bar Harbor and the rocky coasts and light houses of Maine, Acadia National Park, Cadillac Mountain. But nothing was as beautiful as the vision of heaven we saw when we came back home. These pictures were taken from the car on I-68 shortly after crossing into WV. Although we were in Preston County, I consider that to be part of the Greater Morgantown Metropolitan Area. And I consider Morgantown my home town.

Thanks to everyone who’s stopped by Picture West Virginia in the first couple of weeks. I’m hoping the following weeks see a little more participation, so if you have any interest in playing along, week three is a good time to start. The topic is “Structures.” Even if you don’t feel like participating, I’d appreciate it if you’d spread the word to anybody you know who might be interested.

If anyone has questions about PWV, feel free to email me at bryan@picturewestvirginia.com.

Post by: Bryan Stealey
Town: Morgantown
Website: Reversing the Numbness

They keep changing our landscape, to put more change in their pockets. Something’s got to change. I think we’ll have to change first.

————-

My friend Becky Kimmons sings (beautifully) in an a capella group now called BareBones, but formerly known as Missing Person Soup Kitchen Gospel Quartet. (There are only three members. Get it?) She gave me permission to use this amazing recording of “The West Virginia Hills,” off their Stirring It Up album. The photos are used with permission by Vivian Stockman of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, a group out of Huntington intent on stopping mountain-top removal. Thanks very much to both Becky and Vivian for allowing me to use these materials for this little slideshow. I’m no filmmaker, but I don’t think the stark contrast between this beautiful song and these haunting images needs much work on my part anyway.

Post by: Clint Stealey
Town: Columbus (but originally Clarksburg and then Morgantown)

Not too long ago, I remember being bummed about how WVU would be negatively affected by the exodus of three universities from the Big East conference. Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami got up and left in the middle of the night, only to leave their siblings hanging out to dry. Of course it affected all of the sports teams, but it more noticeably affected the Mountaineers on the gridiron. I don’t think I could have pointed to one person who thought it was a good thing for WVU. How could it be a positive when it means that we lose the ability to play our second biggest rival in football in VT? Is the conference now simply going to collapse? Will WVU be in a conference that’s going to have a shot at playing for a national title? After all, playing for the ultimate prize is what it’s all about.

Fast-forward a few years and I laugh about that situation. Not only has WVU been the flagship university for the conference, but it has gained national exposure to an unprecedented level. We have won two BCS games in the last three years, beating “little known” teams from Georgia and Oklahoma. A record number of WVU football games have been shown on national TV in these past three to four years, thanks to the team’s success and the conference’s clever television contract with ESPN. Most interesting is that the ACC is the conference that has been negatively affected since the expansion. VT, Miami and BC have not been on the same level as WVU over the past three- to four-year period on the football field. The Big East has simply been better than the ACC in football since the invasion.

Not too long ago, I remember being bummed about Rich Rodriguez leaving his alma mater for a Michigan program that I feel has had its best day. I felt a certain level of betrayal and amazement that he would leave Morgantown. I do think that the WVU-Pitt game affected him so greatly that it caused him to want to withdrawal from the situation, and the Michigan opportunity was the perfect out. How could he leave his alma mater like that? How can he tell a high-school recruit he doesn’t even know “pryor” to telling Pat White and Co.? Are we going to return to a level of mediocrity that persisted during the late ’90s/early 2000s?

Fast-forward a few months and I laugh about that situation. It should be clear to every WVU alum or fan across the country that it is certainly best that this happened. Am I disappointed in missing a trip to New Orleans to watch a title game? Sure. However, it is becoming more and more clear that WVU was coached by an individual who lacks a measurable amount of moral fiber. This is exactly the type of person I would not choose to lead the Mountaineers, even if it means missing a national-title game.

Uncertainty and apprehension always seem to accompany change. However, growth and prosperity can often be at the side of change as well. When it comes to WVU football, “a change can do you good.”

Moderator’s note: Clint Stealey is my little brother, whose ass I used to be able to kick. The operative word being ‘used.’

Post By: Rebecca Burch
Town: Spencer
Website: Carpe You Some Diem

When I was a kid, there were all kinds of little local businesses. They’re almost all gone, now, but they make up such a huge part of my childhood. I’ll never forget the smell of Belle Hardware Store, and the feel of sticking my hands in the huge barrels of bean and corn seeds in the springtime. (I always got told to “get those hands outta there!” but I couldn’t resist.)

A lot of small businesses in the area have shut down for good. Our economy is moving from small, local businesses to huge, global businesses. Large megastores move in and shut businesses down, or the businesses close their doors because it’s too difficult to keep up with all the regulations and paperwork. It’s just so hard to have a small business these days, so most people don’t even try.

Last week, I met this guy:

who is the owner and CEO of Spring Creek Tofu. He informed me that it is cheaper and easier for the nation’s largest tofu supplier to purchase soybeans from Ohio, ship them to Japan, make the tofu and then sell it in the United States than it is to produce tofu from those same soybeans here in West Virginia. He says he has difficulty meeting all the regulations because there are so many bureaus and reporting agencies to deal with, and many of them have confusing or even contradictory policies to adhere to. This is one of the reasons the previous owners quit the business, he said, and the reason that he can’t produce the tofu as quickly as he needs to to meet demand — it takes so much time to do the paperwork that it takes workers away from making the product, but he can’t afford to hire someone new to do the paperwork.

Of course, the changing economy has a positive side for West Virginia. Because of internet connectivity, more businesses are locating outside of large cities, where land prices and taxes are lower and employees have nice, safe communities to raise families in. There is a huge push toward bringing more of these companies into the state. Create West Virginia is a consortium that is working to help communities in West Virginia to find new ways to improve their economic outlooks, and to produce new industries besides the ones we’ve depended on for so long. Believe it or not, West Virginia is ripe for major, positive growth — if we want it enough to accept the change. We have the technological infrastructure, safe communities, historical importance, recreation and cultural events to make these new industries want to locate here. We have hardworking, loyal, resourceful people who would make an excellent workforce for these industries. We are close enough to big cities for convenient access, but far enough away to discourage a lot of crime spillover. West Virginia truly has it all!

But reluctance to change is part of the charm of West Virginia. Some of our towns seem forever frozen in time — still stuck in days when life moved at a slower pace, and everyone knew their neighbors. In many West Virginia towns, you can still watch a movie in a one-screen moviehouse and get a Coke from a soda fountain machine. People bring casseroles when a family member passes away or a baby is born, and the grocery store employees at the few remaining Mom and Pop shops will still bag your purchases and carry them to your car. And that’s OK, too. The trick is finding a way for us to weather all the change without losing what makes us West Virginia. I have faith that we can — we always have.

Moderator’s note: Rebecca has some amazing photography for sale at her Etsy page. If you’re looking to vastly improve the appearance of the walls of your boring ol’ home, support a WV artist and buy from her!

This week on Picture West Virginia, the prompt is “Change, for Better or Worse.” Hopefully everybody who contributed last week is game for another go, and maybe we’ll even pick up another player or two. Anybody who feels a connection to the Mountain State is welcome to either submit a post for this blog, or to post on your own blog, in which case I’ll mention it here.

Any questions? Feel free to contact me at bryan@picturewestvirginia.com.

Janis Bland, a Buckhannon blogger originally from Weston, has published her “My Town” post at her blog, Juanuchis’ Way. It’s a 19-photo tour of Weston that shows some of the amazing architecture the town has to offer, including, of course, the famous Weston State Hospital. Be sure to stop by and check it out!

Props out to my Clarksburg friend Eric Lewis, who felt inspired by this fledgling blog and decided to record a song of the same name. Check it out here: “Picture West Virginia”

Thanks, Eric! Speaking of music, I’d like to invite everyone over to my personal blog (Reversing the Numbness) for this week’s edition of Friday Music, where my buddy Clash is guest-hosting. Have a band you love telling people about? Or maybe you’re looking for new music? Friday Music is a good spot for both.

Finally, there’s still time to submit posts for the first week’s topic, My Town. Also note the upcoming topics to the left — I hope more of you will participate next week!

Post by: Bryan Stealey
Town: Morgantown
Website: Reversing the Numbness

Morgantown rules. We have a vibrant music scene, a thriving arts community, a diverse population, and collegiate sports teams that are firmly planted on the national radar. Not only are we known by football and basketball fans, but Morgantown is also world-renowned in motocross circles, believe it or not. We have cool neighborhoods, museums, famous glass companies, cutting-edge medical facilities, growing industry that employs thousands of people, a happening downtown, dozens of local shops, bistros, coffee shops and bars, a great rails-to-trails systems, a new Wharf District with an amphitheater that features live music and family movies, mountain-bike trails, rivers to ride, rocks to climb, and so much more. Morgantown has really got it going on.

I’m not anti-growth or anything, but I do have to wonder just how far it’s going to go. Sure, we’ve got all that cool stuff I mentioned, but the strip malls are coming in full force, too (some of them in ridiculous places), and an overabundance of national chains are coming along with them. It’s simply remarkable how much construction is going on in this town. As the shopping centers grow, so do houses, condos and apartments. Hundreds and maybe thousands of new homes and units are underway. If you shoot a shotgun randomly in the air — please don’t — a pellet is bound to come down on something that looks like this:

Morgantown Row Houses

From that vantage point, if you turn 45 degrees to the right, you’ll see this:

Another Morgantown Apartment Building Complex

This is happening everywhere here, and it’s not just limited to condos and apartments. Housing developments are also spreading like wild fire, from starter homes to high-end McMansions. I live in a Cheat Lake neighborhood that was built in the ’80s, and builders keep surprising me by finding new places to put houses up in the development.

How is all of this going to end? What will happen to all of the older places where people used to live? Will we really get enough new residents to fill up all of these new buildings? How can we make sure our roads will handle all of this new traffic? Our arteries are already clogged — are we headed for a heart attack?

I don’t know. But if you’re one the many who are moving to Morgantown, know that you don’t have to move into a cookie-cutter subdivision with a nifty view of Interstate 79. There are other options, like this, the single coolest building in town:

The Good Council Friary

That’s right, the Good Council Friary is for sale, and if you have a cool $2.8 mil burning a hole in your pocket, it can be yours, all yours. How cool is this place? On a rainy day you can almost imagine yourself happening upon it after a long trudge through moors of Scotland. I wanted to get up close to shoot a photo of the hand-carved stone it’s constructed of, but I decided instead to heed the ‘No Trespassing’ signs. Though I have to think they would have forgiven me for trespassing against them.