There are so many of us now with ties to West Virginia. I’d like to get a head count. Please sign in if you are a native, previous or current resident, or married to any of the above. If your ties to WV are convoluted, please explain. If you just want to be a West Virginia, just get in line like everyone else.
Um…well, my granddaddy and grandma raised my dad in the same area of southwest Virginia where cowtime now resides, but they had quite a few coal-interest holdings in West Virginia. I don’t know if that counts, but once they took me on a tour of the Pocahontas coal mine.
Did my hospital internship in Charleston, 1981-1982. Lived in a nice little apartment on Wyoming Street. Had a wonderful year. Loved WV but have not been back, sad to say.
Don’t go back. With all the economic depression, young people leaving, and rampant drug problems, Charleston has become something of a third world city in a lot of ways. West Virginia as a whole is in need of some kind of help, though I couldn’t begin to say what kind. Somebody needs to begin to say what kind.
I’m a social worker, WV is the land of opportunity for social workers.
For better or worse, I was born and bred in West Virginia. As I have talked about with Walden, West Virginia is on or near the bottom of the list of poorest states (meaning it’s super poor) and also curiously on the list of states with the fewest higher-educated people. West Virginia is the ONLY state or province entirely within Appalachia, and it is often overlooked because the poor there are mostly white, rural, and not a gay black hispanic lesbian kind of audience (i.e. one whose cause it’s politically correct to work on behalf of).
My Sister lives in WV now, but since she moved there, she wasn’t required to marry in the family (some sort of grandfather clause).
Sorry, being from SW PA, picking on WV is really the only fun we get…well, that and Cleveland.
Sadly, I have to say I agree ten million percent.
When I was a kid, my social worker ended up being one of my dad’s clients. My dad lead a drug ring.
I used to have a cassette of Boots Randolph playing “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” It was an instrumental, but I think that the lyrics of the song made mention of West Virginia. That’s my connection.
I spent a year in Cleveland one week.
My mother-in-law lived in WV when I got married. She had a farm down in a holler at the end of many miles of dirt road. Complete with a gas well (no mineral rights). It was a breathtakingly beautiful place.
Oh ya?
Well… I live in the West and I once knew a gal named Virgina.
I been there.
My grandparents (on my mother’s side) grew up in West Virginia. We still have a lot of family up there. They talk funny.
Nah, y’all down in South Cackylacky are the one’s that talk funny. 
I was born in Bluefield, WV and lived in Mullins and Matoka (coalfields) until I was almost 6 when dad took a job down here in the coal mines of southwest VA and so we moved. My grandaddy lived in Keystone, I still have an aunt and uncle that live in Kimballand a cousin, who broke with mining tradition and became a lawyer who’s in Athens.
Last month we visited my aunt and uncle. I can’t imagine a more desolate or depressing drive as the one from Bluefield to Kimball. All the once booming coal mining towns are mere ghosts of what they once were. From the rows of identical miner’s homes to the mansions of the bosses and mine owners, most are in their final days and are barely habitable. Many of the houses and buildings would be prized and treasured examples of fine architecture anywhere else but there. It is just very depressed and is depressing to look at, much less to live there. They do need help. What they have is a unique picture of a way of life that is gone. Unfortunately there is obviously no incentive or push to preserve this. When we got back to Bluefied, I felt like I had come up out of a hole in the ground back into the light. Very very sad.
This is true for the entire state (I have been all over and have family all over). I’m convinced WV is one of the most spiritually poor places on earth.
I lived in western Virginia for several years, so I had a lot of wonderful back country experiences in the mountains of West Virginia. Some of my early rock climbing took place at Seneca Rocks, there was snowshoeing at Dolly Sods and I spent a total of several weeks underground in some of the lesser known caves.
Economically, West Virginia is one of the poorest states, but in terms of wilderness and outdoor resources, it is one of the richest. Some of the most friendly people in the world too.
That’s been true for some time, to an extent.
We used to fly into the Bluefield airport, then drive to Tazewell. Even as a kid I could always immediately pick up on the fact that we’d passed the stateline into Virginia, because suddenly everything was groomed and prosperous-looking.