Almost Heaven–West Virginia

Monday, January 17th, 2011 – Devious, hungry, cold feet, impatient, expecting death threats

Continuing, my series of highly informative State essays, I’ve long had a theory, that I’ve mainly kept to myself for the sake of my own personal safety, that the prettier and more rural a state is, the higher the likelihood will be that Old Paw who runs the corner store is banging his own sister and proudly harbouring several junior Paws all with six toes and an unusual arrangement of facial features. It doesn’t say it in any geography books I’ve read but who are you going to believe, some learned professor type, or me? Really?

Which brings me neatly to West Virginia. Who doesn’t think of West Virginia without snickering and coming up with phrases like “inter-familial-boning” (I just made that up, it’s good no?) and visions of scraggly, old, beardy-men brewing moonshine in the woods, while wolves howl in the background and scraggly, old, beardy-dude number one’s seventeen year old daughter, Luanne, can be heard indignantly yelling way in the distance, “Noooooo Jim-Bob, y’all put it in back or we’ll git pregnate!”

Whoa, even I can’t believe I wrote that. I AM sorry.

But only a little.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, John Denver seemed to like WV and its “Country Roads” and there’s no debating that if you like mountains and forestland, and what sort of city-assed pantywaist doesn’t, you’ll see the beauty in West Virginia. Majestic mountain ranges, lush valleys, regal forests and fuck-me-I’m-running-out-of-impressive-adjectives type of rivers, all make up its inner structure.

West Virginia confuses people because it’s not actually part of Virginia at all. It’s like the forefathers were all active up in Virginia to the east and they thought, “So what we gonna call that piece of land with the mountains on it, west of Virginia? Oh wait here’s an idea…”

 In actual fact WV was once part of Virginia, way back in the fetal stages of the day, but decided to secede from its confederate neighbour during the American Civil War after Virginia took its ball and refused to give it back or even let it play with it. Allegedly. That’s how I heard it anyway. Never you mind my sources.

Despite what you might think, West Virginia’s state motto isn’t, “Don’t y’all look at my sister that way, she’s mine”, it’s actually, "Montani Semper Liberi” or “Mountaineers are always free” if you prefer English. That motto is really only true if those mountaineers are not captured by some baggy-eyed, hillbilly Appalachian types in overalls with a tooth apiece and who want you to impregnate their daughter. Yet, despite West Virginia’s “rustic” qualities it’s one of the few states that do not have the death penalty.

Not officially anyway…

Now that I’ve gotten those stereotypes out of the way what can I tell you that’s interesting about West Virginia? That it’s the most northernmost southern state in the United States? That a tiny part of it is actually above the Mason Dixon line and so dangerously close to Washington DC that they can come down from the mountain and steal your children at night? That the highest point in the entire mountainous state is a place superbly named “Spruce Knob” making me twelve years old again by saying things like, “I really want to sit on Spruce Knob”.

I hear it’s a big knob.

Did you know that only 13% of West Virginians claim to be “non religious”? If you’re a fire-breathing Atheist you might want to keep your heathen, murderin’, stealin’, hellbent ways out of West Virginia or end up being taught the error of your ways, by the penises of several toothless men who all look the same, while you’re hogtied to a moonshine-still in the barn.

I actually tried to read the Wiki page on West Virginia for serious research purposes, but it was full of actual information and statistics and links and YAWWWWWWN! Who can read pages of that nonsense without spontaneously combusting? It didn’t mention incest or toothlessness or scandal even one time, (BOOOOOORING!) so I found myself drifting off and thinking things like, “I wonder if I can bake an awesome new lemon cake tonight?” and “I really need to scratch an itch all up in my bum, but someone might notice.”

Lastly, it turns out those tooth-devoid, daddy-humping, banjo playing Appalachian people are actually descended from the Scots and Northern Irish, which makes them related to…me. What goes around comes around, as some purveyor of useless, smug sayings once pronounced. As of now, I’m delighted to report that I still have a full set of teeth and am happily not married to my uncle, so I don’t think there’s any reason to panic.

I think that’s about all you need to know really.

Please note that this informative essay is for fun purposes only. I don’t really believe that West Virginians are in-bred, half-witted, toothless, backwoods dullards.
Not all of them, anyway.