You can't go home - Part 2
Posted by Pete on April 05, 2023 at 03:01:39
Here's part two
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The hike up the hill was steeper than I remembered. The path was overgrown, considering its been a few years since a bunch of kids would tramp up and down it every day. I found myself looking for landmarks on the horizon - radio towers, fuel tanks, and stuff that I was used to looking for to orient myself. It was a strange hike, to say the least.
"Daddy," Cole's daughter asked, exaggerating her panting to show how tired she was. "Did you really hike up here every day." "Sure did," Cole answered, "up hill both ways, in our bare feet." "In the snow, too?" his older son asked, sarcastically. "Sometimes," I said, honestly.
We trudged on, and eventually came to the lake. The weeds had grown up around the area we'd used as a beach, but otherwise the place looked remarkably similar. The raft we'd built years ago was miraculously still floating in the middle of the lake - a testament to our friend Link's engineering skills - it looked like one side had sunk into the water, but I bet if we swam out there, we could have repaired it. As far our zip line, the metal cable was still strung from one tree, but the tree it was attached to across the lake had fallen over, and the cable was lying limp in the water. The kids looked skeptical at first. Cole's oldest boy is the most adventurous, and I could see his face start to recognize the beauty of what was in front of him. The other two kids weren't so easily convinced.
"Can we go swimming?" his oldest asked. Cole looked weary, and I fielded the question. "Remember yesterday when we waded across that river?" The boy nodded. "Remember how cold the water was? Well, up here in the mountains, the water's even colder." He gave me a skeptical look, then stuck his hand in the water to test it himself. "Yup, its cold," he agreed. That settled, he and his siblings started racing around the edge of the lake and the surrounding woods. That was fine with me and Cole - there wasn't much trouble they could get into here. If there was an abandoned mineshaft in the area, I'd have fallen down it myself by now.
"I'm glad they didn't end up in the lake," Cole rolled his eyes. "Really didn't want them to be wet and muddy for the trip home." "That ship may have sailed there bro," I pointed to our wet shoes. There had been a lot of rain lately, and the ground was muddy, and we'd been tramping through knee-high wet weeds. Cole observed, "well, at least I have their extra shoes and shorts with me." "Look at you, Mister Dad!" I teased him. He cocked an eyebrow at me. "And what about you," he asked, "did you bring your extra shoes?" I grinned sheepishly - of course I had not. Cole scowled and turned back to the lake. After a while the kids scampered they way back to us. "Is that the zip line you built?" the older boy asked. "Sure is," I said, my throat catching again as I remembered the adventure of building that contraption, with my friend Dylan. Cole smiled and told the story - wisely editing out the part where we'd broken into an abandoned building and stolen the supplies we needed. Then I pointed to the raft and retold how we'd built that, and how we swam and pushed it out into the middle of the lake, and how much work it was. But, it was still there! The kids listened and laughed, and the mood lightened a bit.
Finally, we hiked back down the mountain towards the car. Then came another surreal experience - walking out of the woods with my brother into our backyard, and the sight of our old house, the back porch, the lawn furniture, the garden hose coiled up on the wall of the house.... We quietly walked around to the front of the house, where our car was in the driveway. Cole got to work herding his kids out of their wet and muddy pants, shoes and socks, and into clean shorts and sandals. I walked around to the other side of the car and tried to scrape the mud off my own shoes. Cole's kids were fussing, they didn't want to change out of their pants in public, "where everyone could see them" - not like there was another soul in sight. I quietly laughed at Cole's patient voice saying, "you know what I did when I came home all dirty from playing outside?" "What?" one of the kids whispered. "Well, your grandma wouldn't let me come inside if I was all dirty, so I had to take off all my clothes, down to my undies, in the back yard. Then rinse off with the garden hose. Then I was allowed to go inside?" "Wasn't that cold?" the older boy asked. "Yeah..." Cole said. I was tempted to chime in, saying that then Cole would go up to the bathroom and take a long, hot shower. So by the time it was my turn to shower, there was no hot water left! But, I figured we could save that story for another time.
While I was thinking, the old man came out and handed me and armful of water bottles and granola bars, he figured we'd need them after our long hike. I was blown away by his hospitality, and we chatted a bit more before waving goodbye. I turned to Cole, and he looked DRAINED. Like, fall asleep standing up exhausted. "You want me to drive? You like tired," I offered. "You look tired too," he retorted. "You look worse," I assured him, and he scowled and tossed me the keys. As we buckled up and started pulling out of the driveway, Cole's oldest boy asked, "Can we stop at Coalwood?" Cole's oldest was at the age where he was fascinated by astronauts, and he'd seen the October Sky movie and heard the story of the Rocket Boys, and he was further fascinated to learn that the story took place not terribly far from where their daddy grew up. I looked at Cole, figuring he wasn't up to extend this trip any further, but he just shrugged. "You're driving, your choice." I vaguely knew where Coalwood was - somewhere between Welch and War - but I'd never been there myself. While its moderately famous thanks to the movie and book, in my mind, it was just another small coal town in the region, nothing particularly remarkable about it. But, if my sense of geography was right, it was roughly on our way home, so I headed in that general direction, and fortunately some well-placed road signs pointed me down the twisty road into Coalwood, and we pulled up into the center of town.
One way that Coalwood was different from our town was the Coalwood was a true "company town" - that meant that the coal company owned literally everything, and there were no private businesses in town. So in those kinds of towns, there was usually one big building that served as a company office, and the company store, and the doctor, and dentist, and anything else the town needed. So in Coalwood today, there's no strip of abandoned businesses like there is in my town. So from that standpoint, Coalwood looked at lot nicer to visitors, and the kids enjoyed looking at the couple of signs along Main Street that told the story of the Rocket Boys, and at the end of town was a little playground with a replica of a space shuttle that was about four feet tall, and great for picture taking. I inquired with a local as to how to get back to the interstate - that may have been a mistake, as his directions took me on miles and miles of twisty, windy, dark backroads. We did stop in the town of War, where a small restaurant was serving dinner. The old lady who ran the place looked, in the words of West Virginia's Patron Saint, John Denver, as though she was "older than the trees." She sized us up skeptically when we walked in, but once she determined that Cole and I were originally from the area, her face softened, and she was eager to cook the kids whatever they might want. We enjoyed a wonderful meal, though I suspect the kids would have preferred their familiar Burger King or Pizza Hut, then got back on the road.
I was glad that we'd probably make it back to the interstate by dark, as we were traveling through the hollers and backroads of the coal fields - and even though I was technically from the area, this was not somewhere I'd like to break down and be stuck overnight. The drive was quiet as we passed from one decimated town to the next. Cole was lost in his thoughts, the kids were stunned by the zombie apocalypse scene they were seeing out the windows, and I was trying to focus on the dark, twisty roads, and make sense of the directions I'd gotten from the local back in Coalwood. Finally, we reached the interstate, and everyone breathed a bit easier when we crossed the state line back into "the other Virginia" - complete with its street lights, chain restaurants, big box stores, and houses with vinyl siding.
We got back to the hotel and met our wives in the lobby. Based on our faces, they saw we'd had a long trip. I'm hardly a heavy drinker, but I wanted a beer. "Daddy," Cole's oldest piped up, "can I go swimming one last time?" (We'd be leaving the next day.) Cole looked exhausted, "you need your swimsuit," he said quietly. His son gave his daddy a look I'd seen on Cole's face hundreds of times - the look he gave me when I said something nonsensical. I whispered to Cole, "just let him go like that, what's the harm?" Cole shrugged. "OK, fine, you can go for a swim." The boy was just wearing a t-shirt and shorts, nothing that was going to get hurt in the water. Then his sister demanded to know whether her brother was actually going to swim in his clothes. Cole nodded, and then she inquired if she too could swim in her clothes. Cole shrugged - so the two kids made a bee-line for the pool and jumped in. The youngest boy was all tired out, and he sat on his mom's lap and feel asleep, as we sat next to the pool. "This was a long day," I admitted, "it was a lot weirder than I thought it would be." "We're gonna have to talk to the kids," Cole confessed to his wife, "they saw a lot of stuff today - the poverty and everything - that they weren't ready for. I didn't think enough about this before I took them there." We talked a bit more over a round of beers. I was amazed at the two tireless kids swimming laps in the pool after the long day, I have no idea how Cole keeps up with them.
The next morning, we checked out of the hotel. I'm sure the kids would have wanted to swim the rest of the day, but they had something else to look forward to - their school's spring carnival. Now if you ask me, this was kind of a sketchy situation. Its a weekend, they're supposed to be on school break, but yet they have to go to school anyway for a carnival. Sounds like a conspiracy to me. But the kids were excited about it, and they wanted their aunt and uncle to join them. I was honestly ready to be back at home, but you know, these carnivals often have dunk tanks, and they're often looking for volunteers to get dunked, and I am nothing if not generous. So off to the carnival we went!
And they did not have a dunk tank. But they did have something interesting - a pie throwing booth. They cut some holes into sheets of plywood, painted them with a funny scene, and people would stick their faces through the holes, and for a small price, you could buy a plate of whipped cream to toss at the face of your desired target. They had the usual suspects - teachers, the principal, some parents, and apparently the 6th grade students as targets. It was funny to watch for a few minutes, obviously the adults were good sports about letting the kids lob the pies at them, but the 6th graders were hilarious. Much like a dunk tank, it seemed like the "victims" were having much more fun than the people paying money to dunk/pie them. It seemed like the system was that the more you were willing to pay, the closer you were allowed to stand to the targets when you tossed the pie at them.
Soon, Cole's oldest boy asked, "Daddy, will you do the pie throwing booth?" I laughed when I heard that - Cole would almost certainly be a good sport about a dunk tank, but I didn't see him easily agreeing to have people throw anything at his face. "Nah.... ask your Uncle Petey." He turned to me, "Uncle Petey, will you do the pie throwing booth?" "Sure," I said, "go stick you face through the board, and I'll throw a pie at you." "I'm not OLD enough! You have to be a 6th grader to get pied!" he laughed. "Well I'm not a 6th grader!" I protested. "Yeah, but you're a GROWN UP!" "Well why do you want to throw a pie at me??" "Because you're FUNNY!" "Well OK, I guess I can't argue with that - but when you're in 6th grade, I'm gonna remember this and I'm gonna throw at pie at YOUR face!" "Awesome!"
I walked over to the guy who seemed to be herding the volunteer victims, and he handed me a plastic poncho that would protect my clothes. "You actually doing this?" Cole asked, rolling his eyes. "Anything for a laugh, Cole," I assured him. I was offered a set of plastic goggles for my eyes, but turned them down. I figured if you were paying to throw a pie at my face, you could at least enjoy seeing it hit my whole face. I stuck my face into one of the holes in the plywood, and eyes Cole and the kids over at the table where the pies were being assembled and sold. "Hey kids, I hope you have better aim than your daddy! Otherwise those pies are gonna hit this kid next to me!" I saw Cole smirk, a smirk I knew all too well, and next thing I saw was a few more dollar bills leaving his wallet and being handed to the pie sellers, and then a few more scoops of whip cream were added to the pies. Me and my big mouth! And apparently Cole was feeling especially generous, as each child was armed with not one, but two large whip cream pies. Plus, Cole had two pies of his own. Meanwhile, my wife and SIL are getting their phones ready to film the spectacle.
"Uh oh," I said, as the army advanced on me, "this hardly seems fair!" "You regretting your decision?" Cole asked me. "A little bit," I confessed. "Ok kids, let's do a count down from 5, and then pie him, OK? 5... 4... 3... 2... 1! PIE!" Next thing I know, I'm getting pies smashed into my face from all angles - and it was the funniest d-mn thing, to be quite honest! Nothing I could do but laugh as the kids had their fun. I let them laugh at the site of me covered in whip cream, then wiped my eyes and face off, and stuck my head back through the hole. SPLAT! My wife sneak-attacked me with a direct hit! I allowed myself to be the target of a few more projectiles, then offered my spot to the next willing volunteer.
My nephews and niece appreciated my service, and I mentioned that it would be great if their father could be half as cool as their Uncle Petey, and agree to take a pie or two. "Petey..." Cole moaned at me, but I looked at his face and knew he'd agree to do it. "I'm gonna remember this when it comes time to give you your allowance" Cole jokingly scolded his kids. "I'd use my allowance for the WHOLE YEAR on this!" his oldest boy assured him. Cole resigned himself to his fate, and walked behind the plywood and reluctantly stuck his face through one of the holes. Meanwhile, I was now in charge of arming the children with pies, and I beat my brother's previous high bid, and the pies got even larger. I smirked at Cole, and one look at his face and I knew EXACTLY what he was thinking of me right then! But Cole was a good sport and let his kids just absolutely clobber him, the poor guy. He was literally scraping handfuls of pie off his face when he was done, and his kids (and wife, and brother) were all hooting with laughter at him.
"Hey Cole," I took a few steps towards him to tease him, and he smooshed one of the handfuls of whip cream right back into my face. "Boys boys!" my wife scolded us, then asked for a picture of the two of us. The picture came out hilarious - I was smiling from ear to ear, Cole was looking like he was regretting getting out of bed that morning. "Ok boys, say Thank You," my SIL reminded the kids. "Thank you Daddy! Thank you Uncle Petey!" the kids chirped - and then, satisfied with their work, with the adults in their life thoroughly humiliated, the kids sprinted off to their next activity, leaving Cole and I stunned. "I hate you so much, Petey," Cole sighed at me. "Yeah," I admitted, as I wiped more pie filling out of my hair "this might not have been one of my better ideas." "Ya think so?" Cole asked, sarcastically. "How are we supposed to get cleaned up?" I asked. Cole nodded towards the side of the school building, where a garden hose was hooked up. "Oh, just like old times," I observed.
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