Written companion: the landmark has been gone for years
There are two ways to find a place in West Virginia: follow the map, or ask somebody who remembers what the map used to look like.
The second method begins with a question you cannot answer.
“You know where the old store was?”
You do not. This is treated as a disappointing gap in your education rather than a problem with the directions.
The store closed before you got your driver’s license. Its replacement burned down. The concrete pad is now behind a privacy fence. Nevertheless, it remains the county’s most dependable navigational reference.
From there, you go past where the bridge used to be, bear right at a house belonging to a man whose nickname you have never heard, and continue until the road “gets a little bad.”
The road already looks a little bad.
That is how you know you have not reached the bad part.
Distance is measured in confidence
“Just down the road” can mean the next driveway or a journey requiring a drink and a phone charger. “You can’t miss it” is generally the last thing you hear before missing it.
The person giving directions will occasionally point through a mountain. This gesture represents the destination’s general location, not a suggestion that a road goes there.
If you ask for an address, they will explain that the address takes you to the wrong side.
If you mention GPS, they will tell you about the last fellow who used it. Nobody has heard from him, although his truck apparently made it out.
The safest approach is to repeat the directions back. This gives your guide an opportunity to remember a vital turn, revise the landmark, or recruit another person who disagrees with everything.
Eventually, someone offers to drive ahead and show you.
Follow that person immediately.
They are the only part of this system that moves.
The Holler Herald — West Virginia’s Least Reliable News Source.
