Story Telling Poll Round 2

realjohnboy

1969

The Appalachian Mountains that I know start up in northwestern Virginia, near a town called Front Royal. They run pretty much due south through the state.
When they get down into southwestern Virginia, the range divides. One branch runs down into the Carolinas. Another doubles back into West Virginia. A third heads into Tennessee, eventually hooking up with the
Smokies.

Did you know that the Appalachian Mountains were once taller than the Rockies are today? Thousands and tens of thousands of years later they've been worn down to just a few thousand feet high.

Coming off this spine of a mountain range are ribs of ridges coming down to the valley floor. I don't know why but most of these ribs are on the east side. They twist and turn before they finally level out against Route 29.
In between some of the ridges are pretty wide valleys. Paved roads go through rows and columns of peach and apple trees. The paved roads end in front of expensive homes.
Other ridges create valleys so narrow that they aren't even called valleys. Tucked in against the ridges on the sides and the mountains to the back they are called hollows. There is Blackwells' Hollow, Bacon Hollow, Shifflette's, Cummings' and probably fifty others in this area.
The roads into these places may start out as gravel but quickly turn into dirt tracks. That is probably good because the people who live up there don't like strangers too much.

My brother went to UVA for awhile. He lived at home so he was a "townie" even though our house was 45 minutes south of Charlottesville; 35 minutes if he was driving. Townies were held in pretty low regard by the rich, preppie kids from northern Virginia or Connecticut or wherever. But my brother had an innocent "aw shucks"
attitude. He had a lot of friends.

Once, in the spring of 1968, just before he quit UVA and joined the Marines, my brother took me and the girl friend that he said was the first
girl he ever felt he was in love with up to Newton's Hollow. We were riding, the three of us, in the Ford pickup, laughing and shouting as my brother slammed the truck through its gears to get over the rocks and roots.
There was a small wooden building there. About the size of a garage and painted, although not recently, a powder blue color. We went inside and sat and talked for awhile and then we went home.

In September of 1969, I was 17. I was old enough to begin running with the Nelson County Volunteer Rescue Squad.
Hurricane Camille had hit the Gulf Coast of Texas or Louisianna several days earlier, causing some damage and making the news. Then it was forgotten. The remnants of the storm moved inland and eventurally rode the spine of the Appalachians up into Virginia. Then it stopped. And it rained. It rained a lot.

We were called and told to go to the Tye River bridge over Rt 29. We got there just ahead of the Sheriff. He and his his family were on their way to some kind of reception. He and his wife and daughters, dressed in their finest clothes, stood on the bridge in the pouring rain and watched the hollows being flushed out.
We saw henhouses and outhouses, pigs and cows, appliances and vehicles. And then I saw a bunch of powder blue lumber.
The Sheriff said, "I reckon that's Newton Hollow."