# You can't go home - Part 1

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Posted by Pete on April 03, 2023 at 02:11:20

So I have a lot to share in this story... There's some wackywet stuff, followed by a lot of me reminiscing about a visit back to my childhood hometown. As I write this, I realize that it would be a good epilogue for the stories I've been writing about my experiencing growing up - but, I don't want to wait too long to write this, I feel a real need to get these words written down NOW. I will split this into two parts, though, since I realize this story is way too long. And I apologize for that, feel free to skip it if you're bored by my reaction to returning to my depressing hometown. But, if you stick with it through part 2, I can at least promise you that there will be some good stuff coming to wrap up this story, that I think you'll enjoy. Anyway, here it goes...

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My brother Cole and his wife have three wonderful kids, and as my wife and I do not yet have children of our own, we're enjoying being aunt and uncle to my brother's kids. Back sometime around Christmas, their school was having a fundraiser dinner where they did a silent auction and raffle on some stuff. My wife and I went, along with my brother and sister in law, and I ended up winning a weekend getaway at an indoor waterpark/hotel, not too far from where my brother lived. Being that I don't currently have kids of my own, I decided to offer the prize to my brother and his family. When I called my brother up to make the offer, he was less than grateful - I think he's reached the point of parenting when a family vacation is actually far more stressful than just going to work (even considering he's a firefighter-paramedic - three kids can be a chore!) So then I floated a revised idea - how about his family, plus me and my wife all go, and make a long weekend of it, and we'd take turns watching the kids. Everyone will have fun, but all of the adults will get some down time without the kids. Plus, all of us (me and my wife, he and his wife) all had more vacation time than we knew what to do with. Cole eventually agreed to this plan, and last week we did a long weekend at this waterpark, since their kids were on spring break from school.

The waterpark was everything a kid could ask for - a bunch of slides, tons of games, loud music, obnoxious lights and sound effects, and sheer chaos. As soon as we got to the hotel on Wednesday night, the kids had changed into the swimsuits and were splashing around in the pool, with us adults struggling to keep up with them. Us four adults grabbed a table next to the pool to keep an eye on the kids. It was a Wednesday, so the place had several families with kids all swimming, but wasn't super crowded. The kids made friends with some other kids that were there, and spent a couple hours playing around between the pool and the arcade games that were right next to the pool. Meanwhile, we adults chatted, catching up on family and work gossip.

Eventually the kids got a little bored, and came over to ask us to join in their pool game. That got a quick "No" from three out of the four of us... but I, of course, had an idea. "Tell you what," I said grandly to the kids, "I want to know which one of you can do the BIGGEST cannonball with the BIGGEST splash! And I'LL be the judge!" I walked over to the edge of the pool. "I'm gonna sit RIGHT HERE, and you all have to try to splash me with the BIGGEST SPLASH you can!" I was wearing blue jeans, a white undershirt, and a blue and white striped collared shirt, and was barefoot. When I sat at the edge of the pool, I stuck my feet in the water and immediately soaked the ankles of pants. The kids thought I had a great idea, and immediately started trying to one-up each other, cannonballing into the pool and seeing who could make the biggest splashes. And, even though they'd all ended up splashing me pretty good, I eventually goaded them on a bit, and said "Those splashes were GOOD, but I think they can be better. When I do a cannonball, I do the BEST cannonball ever. Do I need to show you how its done?" "YEAH!" The kids all yelled - including a bunch of other random kids who I wasn't even related to. I stood up right next to the edge of the pool. "You're telling me that you don't know how to do cannonball as good as me, and I need to show you?!" "Yeah, show us!" I quickly turned to look at my wife, brother and sister in law. My wife, as I expected, was rolling her eyes at me, but my sister in law was grinning. My brother, normally effectively mute and emotionless, actually gave me a fist pump and yelled "Show em how its done, Petey! Go for it!" Well, the verdict was unanimous. "Ok, ok, everyone, give me some space." I waved at the kids, and they swam back from the edge of the pool. "Ok, now I need a countdown... 10, 9, 8..." The kids (and honestly a lot of the adults in the area) joined in the countdown, then I jumped as high as I could and did a cannonball into the water, to the applause and cheers of all in the area. The kids of course thought this was the funniest thing they've ever seen, and my nephew was laughing so hard at me, I honestly thought he might drown while he was trying to tread water. I was a little surprised at the reaction - I've spent a lot of time getting dunked fully clothed into dunk tanks, but this was probably the biggest, most positive reaction I'd ever gotten. This sounds cheesy, but I really do like just getting to make people laugh and feel good about everything, and if all I have to do to make people laugh is jump into a pool wearing jeans and a shirt, well... that's pretty easy to do, if you ask me. Anyway, I spent the next half hour or so playing in the pool with the kids, then climbed out and headed back to the adults.

Back at our table, another couple, who looked a bit older than us, were talking to my wife/brother/SIL. "Yep, those three are ours," my SIL was saying, pointing at her kids in the pool. "And this," she said, pointing at me, "is my brother-in-law, the biggest, most immature kid of them all." "Nice to meet you. I had to demonstrate how to do a cannonball with a big splash," I said, in way of introduction. The male half of the couple, who looked like he'd spent some time at the adjacent bar, literally doubled-over laughing. "Oh, is that it?" he laughed, and he was laughing so hard I couldn't help but laugh back at him. "I bet its a lesson they won't soon forget!"

None of us are heavy drinkers, but Cole and his wife got up and returned with plastic cups of beer for the four of us, plus our two new friends, and we spent the rest of the night chit chatting while the kids exhausted themselves in the pool. As we retired back to our respective hotel rooms, I observed, "I know some kids that are going to sleep well tonight!" "I know one Uncle Petey who better be hoping they do!" Cole sarcastically replied.

The next day at breakfast, the kids were already bouncing off the walls while Cole was falling asleep into his coffee cup. I find it hilarious that his three kids all seemed to inherit my talkativeness, and none of their father's stoicism - but, I'm happy to talk to anyone, and so are they, so we grabbed a table to munch on our pancakes and cereal, while the other three adults enjoyed a more quiet morning. After breakfast, we headed to a nearby park for a long hike through the woods hike. Cole's kids inherited a healthy sense of adventure, and loved hiking and other outdoor activities. When the trail reached a spot where we had to cross a river, the ladies decided to turn back, but the kids begged to be allowed to press on. The river wasn't deep - and, if it wasn't for some heavy rains recently, we probably could have just stepped across on stepping stones. But, the water was just about ankle-deep. So, Cole and I reluctantly pulled our shoes off and helped the kids wade across the river. I did laugh, their enthusiasm was briefly challenged upon stepping into the water, that was at this time of year largely snow-melt, and fiercely cold. But, we finished our hike without incident, then had lunch and ice cream in town. That afternoon and evening, me and my wife offered to supervise the kids while Cole and his wife spent some quality time together. Luckily for me, the kids still weren't bored of the pool, and another long day and late night of swimming ensued, until their parents returned late from their night out.

The following day was interesting. All of Cole's kids, but especially his oldest son, had started showing an interest in how Cole and I grew up. When they'd be at our parent's house, they'd go through their old photo albums, of me and Cole when we were kids. Partly, they just thought it was funny to see pictures of their daddy when he was their age. And there were some funny shots in there, like of Cole and me in the dunk tank at the church carnival (they understandably thought the sight of their daddy in a dunk tank was hilarious, even if their daddy was barely a teenager, at the time.) And, well, I do enjoy telling a story, and when we'd get the whole family together, there was usually a fair amount of story-telling between me and Cole, that his kids would overhear. They loved hearing about our "hillbilly waterpark" and some of the various trouble we'd get into with our friends. Their older son was also turning out to be quite smart (so very different from his daddy, and VERY different from his uncle), and had carefully studied maps of southern West Virginia, trying to find out town where we lived, where we went to school, and other places that we'd talked about. And this waterpark we were visiting was actually kind of on the way towards our old hometown. So, naturally, the kids asked if we could visit there.

"Well, would you rather go for a drive? Or do more swimming?" Cole asked, subtly trying to talk them out of the idea of driving back into the coalfields of rural southern West Virginia. But the kids wanted to see where their daddy grew up, so the next morning, we were loading Cole's kids into his car, with Cole driving and me riding shotgun. (Our wives had wisely decided that this would be better as a guy's road trip, and they'd be hitting a spa near the hotel instead.) We had a couple hours drive ahead of us, and his kids quickly fell asleep. "Well, at least they're sleeping for ride," I observed quietly. Cole stifled a groan, and whispered, "Swimming is the ONLY thing that can get those kids tired out. Otherwise, they're like robots, they have no off switch." Then Cole gave a small smile, "so this summer, I'm installing a swimming pool at home, I don't care how much it costs." "Great, pool party at Cole's," I joked. "You're not invited," he retorted. "You sure? You won't need a lifeguard?" "You'll just get them into trouble, Petey!" "Cole, they're going to get into trouble anyway. Wouldn't it be better if they learned how from the best? I.e., Me?" Cole was quiet for a moment, then replied quietly, "You're probably right."

We didn't have much to say for the next bit of the drive. After about 45 minutes, we'd pulled off the interstate, and passed through the closest "big city" to our town. I didn't have much of a memory of this place from when we were kids, as we only came here rarely, if we needed something from the mall or were going to a nice restaurant or something. The outskirts of town definitely was different, though. Back then, it had just been a mountain and a forest. Today, the forest had been cleared, and massive houses were built on huge lots, with elaborate decks and swimming pools. There definitely weren't any rich people living here back when I was a kid. The next town we came through also looked like it had been revitalized, at least a bit. There was a modern shopping center, some new houses and apartments, and even a traffic light that actually worked. I started to think that, maybe, this area had started to bounce back in the years since I'd left.

I was relieved of that misconception within the next 10 minutes of our drive. The next town we meandered through was just as I remembered - crumbling buildings, vacant storefronts, dirty and grimy. And the next town was the same. And the one after that. This place was pretty down on its luck when we were kids, and it hadn't gotten any better with age. We eventually made it to the town which was home to our old high school. Cole pulled off the main highway and onto the narrow streets in town, up to the old high school. It was vacant, its lower windows boarded up and some of its upper windows busted out. The parking lot was crumbling and the football field resembled a forest of weeds. I'd heard through Facebook that they had closed down the school a few years back, consolidating it with the other high schools in the county, with a new building somewhere outside of town. Cole slowed the car down, and gave me a look, to ask if I wanted to stop to look around. I shrugged silently, and Cole pulled back out onto the highway.

About 20 minutes later, we were coming around the mountain and down the hill into the town. Cole took the long way around, coming in at the opposite end from where our house was. "We're here," he announced in a nearly silent whisper. We passed the garage owned by the father of my friend Link. Link's dad had died a couple years back, and the garage was abandoned, the big garage door torn off (probably sold for scrap metal), and the interior filled with debris. Every single store front on main street seemed vacant - with the exception of a new bank branch which had been installed right in the center of the row of buildings, its neon sign sticking out like a sore thumb. A house on the opposite side of the street was abandoned, its roof fallen in. Across the river, where the majority of the houses in town were, it looked like maybe half of them were still occupied - if that. I glanced up the side of the mountain, to where the house owned by my friend Wiley had been, and saw that it had burned down, only one of its walls left partially standing, huge black scorch marks fanned out around the holes that had been windows.

Cole drove the rest of the way down Main Street, and pulled into the gas station at the Y. It was pretty much exactly like I remembered - it had a different company logo on it now, but it was the same ancient gas pumps and cinderblock store. Cole's kids woke up as they felt the car turn off, and we all climbed out of the car.

Cole's daughter has my genes in terms of wearing her heart on her sleeve - and speaking her mind - and as she took a look around, she said, "Daddy... did you LIVE here?" "Yep," Cole said, and pointed at the school across the road (which was apparently still in use, based on the kids' art projects taped to the inside windows) "That's where Uncle Petey and I went to school." His daughter's face was priceless - the best way that I can describe the look on her face is, imagine you gave a child a cookie, and told them it was a chocolate chip cookie. But then they bite into it, and find that its an oatmeal raisin cookie instead. "Daddy," she said again. "Daddy, this is kind of scary."
Cole scooped her up into his arms and gave her a kiss on her forehead. "There's nothing here to be scared of," Cole quietly assured her. "Let's stretch our legs," I suggested brightly, and gestured towards main street. Cole's two boys took off up the narrow sidewalk, while Cole lagged behind a couple steps, carrying his daughter, who was safe in his daddy's arms, but still peering around suspiciously at her surroundings. I jogged a bit ahead to catch up with the two boys.

"Uncle Petey?" the younger boy said, "this isn't how I pictured it." I thought about that - I realized that, thanks to their parents' hard work, these kids had grown up in a nice suburb, in a new home, in a neighborhood full of new homes, with an HOA to make sure everyone's house is freshly painted and grass is neatly trimmed. They'd likely never seen a town like this, much less walked through the middle of one, with dirty vacant buildings, burned out buildings, houses with tarps for roofs and cardboard boxes uses to cover up the missing windowpanes. When we'd tell stories about growing up here, we'd just talk about the fun we had and the friends we had - we didn't mention the blight, the poverty, the domestic violence, suicides, addiction and alcoholism that permeated this place. "How did you picture it?" I gently asked, genuinely curious. "Well, like..." he mentioned the same of some kids movie I didn't recognize, "... where you guys were living out in the woods, having adventures every day, and it was awesome." "Well, it WAS like that," I explained. "We did pretty much live out in the woods. And had adventures. And it WAS awesome!" I smiled as I remembered some of the better days from my youth. "Were you and daddy poor?" Cole's older son asked, directly. I thought about that one for a second. "Well, your grandma and your grandpa, they both went to work every single day to make sure that we could buy everything we needed. We always had all the food, all the clothes, and all the shoes we ever needed. But," I winked at him, "I HATED wearing shoes." "Me too! But daddy says I have to," he commiserated. "Between you and me, your daddy didn't like wearing shoes either, when he was your age." We walked quietly a bit more. We passed Dr. Latham's former office, with a paper taped to the door advising the office was closed, Dr. Latham had retired, and the address of the next-closest doctor's office, several towns away. The paper was yellowed, it had clearly been there for quite a while. "Where did everybody GO?" Cole's younger son asked. And that, young man, was a great question. The answer was that everyone had gone to exactly the same places Cole and I had went - namely, anywhere on earth other than this god-forsaken place. I looked around, desperate to see a familiar face or hear a familiar voice. But, everyone I'd know from growing up here had either died, or moved away. In fact, the only soul in sight was a bit ahead of us, stumbling along the opposite side of the road, clearly strung out on something, mumbling at whatever demons were in his head. I didn't think he'd cause us any trouble - heck, he didn't even know what planet he was on, much less register our presence at all. Still, I turned and caught Cole's eye, and he nodded, indicated he'd seen him too. I held my nephews hands as we walked, up towards Link's old garage, keeping an eye on the zombie stumbling further on up the road, until he wandered off into the woods, out of sight. The only familiar sound and sight was that of a freight train full of coal, rumbling across the tracks at the far side of town, the exact same way it had every day for the 18 years I'd lived here. And I wondered, all that coal's worth a ton of money, but who the h-ll is seeing any of that money? Definitely not the people who live around here, who's families, for generations, have given their all to dig that black sh-t out from underneath these mountains.

I brooded as we crossed to the other side of the street, near the river that ran parallel to main street. My nephews cried "Is that the river where you'd go swimming?" And sprinted down to the bank. Previously, the river bank had been sharp, jagged rocks that were waste from the coal mines (and walking barefoot on those was a great way to toughen up your feet, fast.) But that had all been cleared out at some point, and the bank was now grass, and the walk was actually rather pleasant. The kids skipped rocks in the river, and I reminisced about the spot where I'd first met my friend Dylan - and "outsider" who visited our town briefly, and we'd become good friends. For the first time, I felt some sadness, something catch in my throat that I forced myself to swallow. Though I haven't shared it here yet, Dylan's story does not have a happen ending, and it suddenly all hit me. Hard. I took a deep breath and instead focused on the happy scene in front of me, three happy kids having fun, not too differently than how Cole and I did when we were there age.

We made it back to the gas station at the Y, and they still served horrible junk food, that was a huge health risk, but that the kids would love, so I went to order a feast of hot dogs, french fries and soda. The guy working the cash register didn't recognize me, and asked "you passing through?" I almost laughed - if you weren't from the area, you wouldn't have picked up on real questions. On the surface, it was a friendly questions. But the REAL question he was asking was, who are you, and what the h-ll are you doing here? "I... used to live around here," I said, slipping back into the local accent. It sounded strange to hear myself say that. "Oh? Where 'bouts?" the guy asked me. "Up that way," I said, pointing over his shoulder, towards the road running up the hill towards our old house. "Everything like you remember it being?" he asked me, somewhat sarcastic. For one of the few times in my life, I didn't know how to answer that. The guy didn't seem offended that I ignored his question, and finished putting the food I ordered onto a plastic tray. "Here ya go! Welcome back!" I thanked him and returned to the table with Cole and his kids, and we chowed down on lunch. While we ate, Cole and I entertained the kids with some more stories from our childhood.

"Can we see the house you lived in?" Cole's daughter asked us. The other kids looked on eagerly. Cole and I looked at each other - really, we should have thought more about this before we came back here, especially with the kids. My parents had sold the house several years ago, I didn't pay much attention to who bought it, or anything else about the process. Now, in addition to unexpectedly worrying about my own emotions, I realized I had no idea what the kids would see if we drove past our house. I had no idea if it was even still standing, if it was dilapidated and gutted, burned out, or what. Cole gave it some thought, then decided, "we can take a drive out that way."

We piled back in the car, with Cole at the wheel, and slowly pulled out of town, up the hill towards our old house. "If we have to," Cole whispered to me, "we can just keep on driving..." Cole was clearly thinking along the same lines that I was. It wasn't a long drive back to the house - every day, for years, we'd walk or ride our bikes down this hill into town. Cole and I were carefully peering around each bend in the windy road, to see the condition of the house. And when we finally spotted it, it looked, well, same as I remembered. Maybe it could have used a fresh coat of paint, but otherwise, it as almost exactly as I remembered. "Hrmmm," Cole said, pleased with what we discovered. He cautiously pulled into the driveway. This might not sound like that big of a deal, but in southern West Virginia, trespassing onto a stranger's property, even just pulling into a private driveway, was a high crime. And, even though I'd lived here for two decades, a huge chunk of my life, I at that moment felt like a total stranger.

The scene that played out next was a West Virginia stereotype. On the front porch was sitting a grumpy-looking old man, older than my parents, glaring menacingly at our car, with its out-of-state plates. He, thankfully, was unarmed, but when we failed to leave, he marched over to our car. Cole rolled down his window. "Oh boy..." he whispered.

"You lost, son?" the old man snapped at him. Cole slipped back in to the local accent when he talked (side note: we'd both tried really hard to change our accents. Easier to be taken seriously and get jobs if it doesn't sound like you're a hillbilly from the coal fields.) "Sorry for bothering you, sir. But, we..." The man looked perplexed. "Spit it out, son. Is something wrong?" "No sir... I, used to live here." Cole's voice cracked when he said that. The man reeled back. "Your name Moyer?" he barked at us. "What? Moyer? No," Cole stammered, caught off guard. "Davison," he explained. "Our parents are Tony and Beth," I piped up, hoping it would be helpful. On hearing those names, the man's who demeanor completely changed. "Oh, you're Beth and Tony's boys?" the man asked us cheerfully. "I knew your daddy, good man!" And just like that, we were as good as family. "Yes sir, I'm Cole - Adam, this is my brother Peter, and these are my kids." "Well welcome, welcome!" A woman's voice barked from the house, "Grant? Who's that?" "Tony Davison's boys, they used to live here!" "Well invite them in," the lady of the house snapped at him, as if he should have already done that.

So we went inside, and the house in most ways looked exactly as I remembered it - and it was a STRANGE experience, and I wasn't expecting it to affect me so much. The old couple who lived there could not have been more kind, and were eager to chat with us. I was in my own world, looking at the dents in the woodwork that I recognized from my childhood, the worn wooden floors, the closet door that didn't close just right. I was totally zoned out of the conversation between Cole and the couple who lived there - leaving poor introvert Cole far outside his comfort zone, needing to carry a conversation with two chatter-boxes. Cole finally caught my eye and fixed me with a glare of death, and I snapped out of my memories and rescued him from having to be a social butterfly. The couple was pleasant to talk to, forced cups of coffee on me and Cole, and a box of donuts on the kids, and we talked in their kitchen for a while. They recognized a lot of the names we knew from our childhood, and they caught us up on some of the gossip and goings-on since we'd left town. (The BIG drama, if you were wondering, was that the convenience store at the Y stopped carrying Maxwell House coffee and switched to Folgers. This travesty has not yet been forgiven round there, apparently.)

The couple would have been happy to talk our ears off for the rest of the day, but thankfully the kids (who had been on their best behavior while the adults were talking) were starting to get restless. "Daddy," Cole's oldest asked him, "can we see the lake you swam at?" Cole's face changed, as we looked out the back porch windows, to the forest on the side of the mountain behind the house. "Erm," Cole asked the old gentleman, "there was - still is, I guess - a lake about a mile up from here," he pointed through the back yard. "Do you know about it? Would we be able to take a walk up there?" "I don't know anything about a lake up there, son," the old man said, "can't say I do much hiking these days. But you're welcome to explore. As far as I'm aware, the coal company still owns all that land, and you never see any of those men around here no more." The man assured us we could leave our car parked in his driveway, and take all the time we need, he wasn't going no where.

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Part 2 coming soon

Follow Ups:

- Re: You can't go home - Part 1 LeviLovR 09:36:07 4/03/2023 (0)
- Re: You can't go home - Part 1 Ry 04:29:38 4/03/2023 (0)
- Re: You can't go home - Part 1 Zonie 02:53:11 4/03/2023 (0)

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