Take Me Home Country Road

The road to Williamson, WV, my dad’s hometown, is very different from the way it was as I was a kid. Growing up, we would take quarterly trips back to WV to visit family that didn’t make the migration to Columbus for work. Back then every road was narrow and winding. The two lanes of asphalt we bounded by railroad tracks on one side and mountain sides on the other. As you drove you competed with coal trucks for your half of the road. The trip is so different today much of the drive is now four lanes of highway. I’m not sure why. The roads are mostly empty, no coal trucks, not railcars loaded with coal, just the muddy brown waters of the Tug River reminding me of an earlier time.