Last night I dreamed I was a child sitting on my grandfather’s front porch, listening to him tell us children about his life growing up. It’s been a long time since my grandfather passed, but the memories I have will be with me forever.
I grew up in Indiana where the land is flat and the cornfields go on for miles. My parents moved there from West Virginia, so when were able to make that long drive from Indiana to West Virginia to see my grandparents, I was so happy! I got excited because not only were we going on a trip, we were going to the mountains!
My dad’s parents lived up a winding road (that wasn’t quite a two lane) that turned onto a dirt road, better known as a “holler”, then when the dirt road forked, their house was right there! Most of the trips that we took there, we arrived late at night and we kids would be asleep, but as soon as those tires hit the dirt road we were wide awake, ready to see our grandparents, our Mamaw and Papaw!
I’m the oldest in my family, as well as the oldest granddaughter, and getting time to spend with my Papaw was the greatest thing for me. I can remember how he would hold my hand as we would walk “down the holler” to his brother’s house to sit “a spell”. After a while, he would say “come on sissy, let’s get home”, and we’d take that walk back to his house and sit on the front porch, in rocking chairs that he had made himself. He always carried Wrigley’s spearmint chewing gum in his shirt pocket; sometimes I think it was just for us kids.
By the time I started the seventh grade, my parents had decided it was time for them to pack up their four kids and “go home”. It was too hard trying to raise a family in an area where your job was good throughout the year and then when winter hit, usually right before Christmas, you were laid off. That’s the way it was every year. My dad moved first and got things settled then came back for us.
West Virginia, a state where the winters are cold and the summers hot, but the spring and fall were perfect! We lived in the southern part of the state where the mountains are literally where you lived. We built a house further back behind my Papaw’s house, where the road forked, we took the right fork and then the left fork, then we were on top of the mountain.
I loved it there for a while, then I became a teenager. A teenager growing up in the mountains, where it takes an hour to go anywhere, can be a teenager who either wants to stay there forever or can’t wait to leave. I became the one that couldn’t wait to leave. Strange how things work out like that. I think that may have been why my parents left that little town, to begin with.
During the hot summers, my cousins and I would spend our days riding bikes down this really steep dirt road and see if we could make that turn at the bottom, without sliding into the creek. We would sit out our Mamaw and Papaws and eat ice cream and watermelon, and a bologna sandwich was the best thing in the world to a hungry kid! In the early evenings, we’d catch lightning bugs while the adults sat on the porch, drinking their coffee and just talking while rocking in those handmade rocking chairs.
As I got older, I would stop on my home from school just to see my grandparents before I went on to my house. By the time I was ready to graduate, I had all these plans and ideas that I was going to go to college far away, far away from that little town. I won a summer scholarship to a University about an hour away from home, but that was an hour away from that little town. I left thinking this was the first step to living on my own to live a life away from a “holler”.
It’s funny how sometimes when what you wish for the most, is what ends up being what you never get. I got married after one year of college. We moved to Virginia Beach, then back to West Virginia. I had a son and decided that we needed to move somewhere where there were jobs, so we packed our son up and moved to North Carolina, making trips back to West Virginia to visit. After living in North Carolina for three years and having another child, a girl, we decided to move back to West Virginia; up to that same “holler” I tried so hard to leave.
My kids were raised in that “holler”. They didn’t get to spend time with my grandparents that much. My grandmother had passed before my son was born and my grandfather passed more than 10 years ago. It’s hard growing up and losing those you love so much. My children grew up doing the same things I did as a child. They rode their bikes down that same steep hill, trying to make that turn and not slide into that same creek. They stopped after school at my parent’s house before they came on home to our house. My father still lives on top of that mountain. My mother passed away just this past September. I now live in North Carolina, again, and I love it, but I do try to get back to that “holler” as often as I can.
My son moved back to those West Virginia mountains and has his own family. My daughter lives here in North Carolina, with her little boy.
It’s hard growing up, but I still have those memories to keep with me. My kids have those memories and hopefully, they can pass those memories on to their children.
I love that long drive I make when I can, back to that “holler”. When those tires hit that dirt road, I know I’m home.
