Al's West Virginia Adventure

**WARNING! There is some offensive language used!!** This is long but an interesting look at not only Al's weekend in WV, but also about a different culture, right here in our own country.

I have been on many weekend trips. All of these trips providing numerous memories and stories that are still being told to this day. Nevertheless, I believe this past weekend topped them all; the good and the bad that will come from the memories and stories created this fateful weekend.

It all started when my friend Mike and I decided to head to West Virginia to do some dirt biking on the famous Hatfield-McCoy trails. Friday evening we stayed in Beckley, WV, about 90 minutes from the trailhead for the set of trails we were planning to ride. After an early breakfast, we headed out to the trails. We drove through some beautiful countryside and some poverty ridden towns, and arrived at the trails around 9am. Within a couple of action, dirt, and rock packed hours, we were riding along the ridgeline of a mountain, stopping at the top for a truly magnificent, postcard-worthy view. We continued to ride for a few more hours towards a town called Gilbert, where we stopped to have some lunch and refuel the bikes. This break in Gilbert was much needed as the trails were very difficult and it took us much longer than expected to get to there. By the time we rode into town we were tired, beat-up and looking pretty rough.

For lunch, we opted for your typical smalltown Subway in a gas station. There were a couple of small tables, tightly spaced. When we first sat down, there was a local security guard that looked more like a homeless man in uniform than someone who might be patrolling the local coal company (although maybe the two are synonymous). Little did we know that this was just the first of the many interesting people we would meet over the next couple of days. After our security guard friend left, an older woman and her son sat down next to us. She looked at me and asked “Are you still a cop?” I informed her that I had never been a cop and I was actually living in Delaware. She kind of looked at me, as though she was trying to figure out where the town of Delaware was in WV. She then went on to tell us that she was using a cane because her daughter (we think) had accidentally backed into her, which led into a story about a friend of theirs (possibly once a cop also) who had run over his mother, twice. They also made sure we knew that we needed to be saved. Overall, some very interesting folks.

With our lunch digesting, our bikes refueled, we were ready to tackle the trails again. After a few more hours of riding, we arrived back at the truck to load up the bikes, grab something to eat, and head to the campground. Before hitting the open road, we stopped in town for some gas and drinks. While in town, I started to hear a whistling noise coming from my truck. The following conversation ensued;
“Mike, do you hear that whistling noise?”
“Yes, may just be the air conditioner.”
“Uh (fiddling with the A/C), no that doesn’t seem to be the case. Well, there aren’t any mechanics open now and we can’t do anything, so I guess we’ll just drive until she blows up.” I was kidding; unfortunately, my truck assumed I was serious.


About 40 minutes into our ride to the campground where we would be staying on Saturday night, we heard a loud pop and I lost all power and steering. Now, here is one of the many amazing things that showed God’s providence over the weekend – for the most part, we had been driving on twisty, hilly mountain roads with a rockface on one side and a cliff on the other. The truck broke down in one of the few flat spots on the road, which had an actual shoulder. Had we broken down anywhere else, we may have had many more problems than just a dead truck. Once stopped we opened the hood, to see that the serpentine belt was completely frayed, caused presumably by a warped power steering pump pulley. We knew we wouldn’t be driving the truck, so we called AAA. While waiting for the tow truck, we began to encounter some more interesting people.

The first gentleman that stopped to help us was a young African American on a motorcycle. Shortly after he arrived, the local chief of police pulled over to see what the problem was. The two of them started talking and decided that someone would go see if the local mechanic was still at his shop. Upon being elected to go check, the young man on the motorcycle asked the cop, “Does that mean you are giving me permission to speed?” The police chief just gave him a dirty look, but remained silent. We later found out that the young man on the motorcycle had previously been a deputy sheriff, but was now working in the coal mines. Apparently there was some rivalry between the two. Mike and I have our theories. Unfortunately, the mechanic had already left. The young man on the motorcycle continued to try to help us by bringing a new belt from his friend and trying to get his friend, who was an unofficial mechanic, to come take a look at the truck (his friend never showed) and he did all of this in between checking on his older brother who had just wrecked his other motorcycle. Apparently the older brother is the black sheep of the family. We also met another older couple who stopped to help, a local guy on an ATV, and one of the current deputy sheriffs. All were very willing to help but unable to.

After about an hour and a half of waiting, the tow truck driver finally showed. I had ridden once before with a tow truck driver, which I found to be very interesting. That encounter would pale in comparison to what Mike and I would experience over the next hour. First, we had to see if he would tow the truck with the motorcycles in the back. He reluctantly agreed and he loaded everything onto the flatbed. We had to go to Bluefield, WV, 28 miles away, which was about the closest town with some decent hotels.


With the tow truck loaded with the car, we now needed to get in. I agreed to sit in the middle since it was my truck being towed and Mike is much bigger than I. Once on the open road we began to receive some interesting lessons from the driver. These included topics such as his views on ethnic diversity in WV, why we shouldn’t wear seatbelts, the former businesses of now dead towns, and a few other such colorful tidbits. I decided not to make too many comments on his lessons as he was both towing our truck and our ride into town. I’ll give just a few quotes here for illustrative purposes:

-Ethnic diversity – Upon entering the truck, the first thing out of the driver’s mouth was this; “You boys are lucky I was working tonight; none of the other drivers will come into these parts of WV, you see, this here is nigger country. Now the old niggers ain’t so bad, but them young ones cause all sorts of trouble with their drugs; all sorts of drugs going around in these parts.” Later when going by an empty convenience store – “You see that store there boys…that used to be a 7-11 and then the blacks came and took over and drove it out of business; couldn’t even get in the place at the end.”
-Seatbelts - As we were getting closer to Bluefield, WV, our destination, we had to go through a few other towns, one of which had a Police DUI checkpoint set-up. The first thought that ran through my mind was, “What and how much has this driver been drinking tonight?” That, of course was not the driver’s first thought. As we got closer to the checkpoint, he chimed in, “Boys, you got your seatbelts on? There’s enough law out here to start a war.” After some fumbling around, we all found our seatbelts and obligatorily fastened them. Normally, Mike and I are very good about seatbelts, but I know for myself, I couldn’t initially find mine when entering the truck and I wasn’t about to start feeling around for it near the driver. Thankfully when we came to the checkpoint, the police let us go through without any trouble. Once out of sight of the police, our driver let us know that we could now take off our seatbelts and began to tell us why it would be a good idea to do so. “Boys, the media always talks about how seatbelts save lives; what they don’t tell you about are the people who die because of the seatbelts they’re wearing. You see, I’ve wrecked two vehicles in my life and if I had been wearing my seatbelt either time, I would have been killed.” “Really, what were those two situations?” “Well, the first time I was driving a coal truck and flipped her over into a ditch. The steering wheel went right through the back of the seat; thankfully, since I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt, I was thrown onto the passenger side. The second time I was driving a Camaro, right over there on that road and someone hit me, bent the car in two; thankfully, since I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt, I was thrown right out of the T-Top.” I decided to keep my seatbelt fastened for the remainder of the ride given this run-down on his driving record.
-Former businesses in West Virginia towns – As we drove through one of the many small towns that at one time seemed to be significantly more active, the driver noted, “This town here boys used to a bustling place; there was a Cadillac dealer over on that corner and an Oldsmobile dealer on that other corner. And, on the weekends, there were all sorts of whores. You could drive down Main Street and women would be hanging out of all the motel windows half-naked. Not anymore though; the coal industry has taken a hit and these people down here are finally felling it.”


We had many other interesting conversations with the driver on our 28 mile trip, including some talk about West Virginia lottery winners, which he seemed to know a lot about and trains. He loved trains; he made a brief mention that he had been to New York City a couple of times. He hated the place, but loved the Amtrak trains; they were fantastic in his eyes. Neither Mike nor I felt it was safe to mention that we had grown-up near NYC.

Thankfully, the drive to Bluefield finally ended at the local AAA mechanic’s garage. We dropped the truck off and the driver informed us of some night clubs we may want to hit while in Bluefield; we paid him and he went on his way. Once he left, Mike and I began to unload the bikes and figure out how much stuff we could carry with us to bring to the hotel. Lisa and Karen had booked us a room The Knight’s Inn (we were skeptical, but it was last minute), so we loaded up and rode a couple more miles to the hotel on the other side of town. Upon arriving at The Knight’s Inn, we decided that the money spent to reserve the room was not worth the amount in medical bills we would incur from the diseases that would be caught while sleeping there. So, before figuring out what other hotels were in the area, we grabbed some dinner at Wendy’s (my first of a number of meals eaten there). Without going into details, the locals were once again quite entertaining. We eventually rode up the block a little further and decided the Holiday Inn would work well; they were nice enough to give us a bit of a discount after hearing our story. We were also still quite dirty, so I think they had some sympathy on us.


Knowing my truck would not be fixed until Monday morning, Mike decided to head home on his motorcycle Sunday morning and I would stay and hang out in lovely Bluefield. On Mike’s way home, he had to head east through the town of Princeton, which was only 12 miles from Bluefield, so I decided to head in that direction with him to grab some breakfast and see if I could find a church. Since Princeton is a much larger town, I was looking forward to having more places to spend my leisurely Sunday in West Virginia.

Apparently this was not my weekend to be using anything mechanical. A few miles down the road towards Princeton, my bike started to loose power. We pulled over to the side of the road, fiddled with it a bit, and it seemed to be okay, so we started up again. After only a few minuets, it began to loose power again. We pulled over again and this time it stalled and would not restart. Mike and I knew there weren’t any car mechanics around but we did try out chances that there might be a motorcycle one open on Sunday given our location. Nope. After a brief call to AAA to find out motorcycle tows aren’t covered and some more failed attempts to start the bike, we decided that it would be best for Mike to continue home and I would begin pushing the dead bike back to Bluefield, an unfortunate 5 hilly miles away.


Delaware is blessedly flat; West Virginia is not. For the next two hours, while pushing my bike back to Bluefield, this brutal fact became my miserable reality. Granted there were a couple of nice down-hills, but there were also a couple of brutal up-hills. Thankfully, the weather and the scenery were beautiful and the shoulder was quite wide. Two people stopped to offer help. The first was a gentleman in a red SUV; his front license plate read Acts 2:38; he was dressed up and his tie tack read, in fake diamonds, “I Love Jesus” and I believe he did, as there were many other people dressed up to go to church, who just kept on driving. After offering to get me gas, which I sadly didn’t need, he did share that he attended the First Pentecostal Holiness Church in Bluefield. I tried to find it once I got back into town, but couldn’t find the street where he said the church was located. Another gentleman with a trailer also stopped to help. The bike would have fit perfectly on the back of the trailer, but by that point, I was only about 1/8 of a mile from the Holiday Inn, so I passed on that ride. The Holiday Inn is at the top of a hill with a very steep driveway. The K-Mart across the street is at the bottom of the hill. I decided after having just pushed the motorcycle 5 miles, I would park it in the K-Mart lot, not the Holiday Inn.

For the remainder of the day on Sunday, I walked around the town of Bluefield, visiting K-Mart multiple times, along with The Tractor Supply store, Kroger, and some fast food establishments. I also walked down to the mechanic’s shop to see how long it would take me to get there, so I would know when to start walking on Monday morning. Amazingly, as I drew closer to the shop, I saw that someone had just walked in. I hurried down to the entrance and walked in and knocked on the office door. I was promptly informed that the shop was closed, but I then explained that the truck sitting in the middle of his parking lot was mine and that I needed it fixed ASAP. He said he couldn’t do anything that day but would look at it first thing Monday morning. I wondered what “first thing” meant in West Virginia…


Overall, I think I probably walked about 12 miles that beautiful Sunday. It was a warm day; somewhere near 90, so by late afternoon, I was ready for a shower and a nap. After said shower and nap, I decided that it would be interesting to expose myself to some of the local church culture. There were two churches not too far from the hotel with Sunday evening services. I opted to try out the Cumberland Road Church of God. I did have a clean pair of jeans to wear and I had bought a new T-shirt at K-Mart, as I had sweated through my only other clean shirt while walking the bike back to the hotel. So I entered the Church of God in my new T-shirt and was greeted warmly by an older gentleman in a polyester suit that was probably older then me. Most of the congregation was older and dressed in their Sunday best. Numerous people said hello to me but no one asked what I was doing there or how I ended up in their small town church in a Sunday evening service. It was a nice looking building but I knew things were going to be interesting when I noticed that many of the ladies were holding fans and there were multiple boxes of tissues up front. I was not disappointed. There were some good bluegrass songs, four special music performers (all surprisingly decent, one girl in particular was really good), plenty of hollering, some hellfire preaching, and a tearful altar call that went on and on. In true Perreca fashion, the normal Pastor was not preaching because it was Pastor Appreciation Day. Instead the wife of the worship leader (same guy who greeted me with polyester suit) was the preacher. She was actually a very good communicator, when she wasn’t screaming. After an hour and forty-five minutes, dinner was calling and I knew KFC was only open for another half hour, so I decided to head out. It seems that some of the members had also gotten bored as a few of the men were standing around together, outside in the parking lot.

Monday morning, I headed out for breakfast, calling the mechanic along the way, who said he would start on my truck. I found a mediocre breakfast sandwich at the local Kroger’s and headed down to the mechanic. Once I arrived there, he had already been working on the truck and was about halfway done. By 10am, the truck was finished and I headed back to the hotel to get my stuff and my bike. Once loaded I jumped on 460 East to head home. The trip home was thankfully uneventful.

Although, there were numerous times on this trip where I thought it would never end, when things were all said and done, I actually had a good time. God showed his grace to both Mike and I in many ways and Bluefield will always hold a special place in my memory. Here is the website for Bluefield, WV, if you’re interested - http://www.cityofbluefield.com/.