Bridge Street Restaurant

Bridge Street Restaurant in downtown Cameron, West Virginia isn’t much to look at, but I wasn’t going there for ambiance.  I needed food and a table to spread out my Rand McNally Road Atlas. 

You may think you don’t need paper maps anymore but try planning a route across several states using the screen on your I IPhone.  I needed to see how far east I wanted to go before heading south.  Along with that, I needed to figure out where I might end up at dark and if there would be a place to stay when I got there.  Why didn’t I have these things planned before I started?  Because that’s not how I travel.

It is not hard for a small restaurant to get busy fast.  There were only a few old guys sitting around having coffee when I walked in.  But soon after me came two groups of men who looked to be work crews of some kind.  They wore those bright vests and serious work boots.  They pulled tables together.  The waitress came to take my order but kept looking up at what they were doing.  I think she was counting them under her breath.

“I’ll have the Reuben sandwich and a glass of milk.”

“It comes with fries.  That OK?”

“You got any slaw? Could I maybe trade fries for an order of coleslaw?”

“Sure.  You want that milk when you bring your meal?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

When she left I opened up my atlas.  I hadn’t come very far, and it was going on 12:30. I was only about 28 miles past Wheeling and going slowly.  It was 75 miles to Elkins.  Trouble was, I didn’t know how long that would take me.  Depended on the road.  And then there was that local Dave warning me about the road past Elkins.

I looked around at the walls.  They were fairly empty save for stuff about Cameron Schools.  Cameron’s team mascot is the Dragons.  That made me smile.  The school mascot in my hometown, Danvers Illinois population 800 (then, 1,044 now but without a high school) was also the Dragons.  They had a Cameron football jersey on the wall, probably the number of some young local hero, along with athletic schedules and a group picture of the cheerleaders.  It was good to see some hometown pride.  But back to the map.

I could take a bigger, no doubt straighter and faster road when I got to Fairmount.  Make it to Beckley.  I’d stayed somewhere by Beckley last time in that 2016 West Virginia snowstorm. 

My food came.  The cook had toasted the rye bread which I like, and there was plenty of shaved corned beef and Swiss cheese.  Little skimpy on the sauerkraut, but plenty of thousand island dressing.  The slaw was good, but the waitress forgot my milk.  I flagged her down.

“I have a glass of milk coming.”

Shoot, I do that all the time.”

She saw the atlas open beside me.

“You’re not lost, are you?”

“Not exactly.  I just don’t know where I’m going.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yeah.  I know where I am.  I just don’t know where I want to go next.”

“Well, if you need help, let us know.”

“Thanks.”

I was working on the second half of my Reuben while figuring out where I might cross into Virginia when the table of old guys drinking coffee slid their chairs back from the table and started leaving.

“You need help?”

I looked up to see a man with a nice smile.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Where you headed?”

“Florida in the end, but for now I want a good route out of these hills that will put me somewhere with a place to stay when it gets dark.”

“Where you coming from?”

I hate to even say where I’m coming from because people look at me like I’m crazy.  Hopelessly lost at a minimum.

“Illinois.”

While his face took on a blank look, but before he could ask another question, I followed up.

“I swung out here on purpose to see how you’re doing in West Virginia small towns.  I come from a small town myself.  West Virginia has been in the news a lot because of your Senator.”

“Yeah, Joe’s soaking up the spotlight all right.  So, what are you finding out about our small towns?”

“I haven’t come to any conclusions, but it looks like things have gotten tough out here.”

“Oh, I don’t know.  It’s always been fairly tough living in these hills.  Matter of degree.  Want me to tell you what I know about that map?”

“Sure.  Sit down.”

I don’t judge age well, but I figured him to be a bit younger than me.  He seemed relaxed, it was the middle of the day, and he was in no hurry to leave.  He had all the characteristics of a retired guy.

“I’m trying to figure out if I can stay on Route 250 on into Virginia and make it into a hotel somewhere by dark.  Guy in the grocery store parking lot told me the road gets a lot harder to drive after Elkins.”

“I’m not sure I agree with that.  I usually don’t take it past Elkins, but I have and don’t remember it as being so bad.  It’s different.  You’re up on Cheat Mountain and the national forest.  Longer climbs and bigger drops than what you’ve done to get here.  Mostly though, there’s little out there.  Beautiful.  But not much for towns or services.  You could google it, but I’m thinking you wouldn’t find a hotel till Staunton, Virginia. Let me see that map.”

He ran his finger down the line that was Route 250. 

“Yeah.  From Staunton you could get on 81 going south or cut over to 29 and head to Lynchburg.  Slow going.  What are you driving?”

“2006 Buick.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“No kidding.  Got that big V-6?”

“Yeah.”   

“How are your brakes?”

“Seem to be OK.”

“Yeah, well I’d be careful just the same.  Driving these hills can be hard on cars.  When we were kids, we bought stick shifts so we could work on the trannies.  We were always burning out clutches.  It was all about clutches, trannies, and brakes.  If you didn’t learn how to put in a set of brakes back then,+ you’d go broke.”

I didn’t respond, but I was thinking of the transmission work I had done on the Buick.  When was that?  Before the pandemic for sure.

“Should be a nice drive though.”

“So have you lived here your whole life?”

“Yep.  Started in the coal mines when I was 18.  Just retired, took my pension.  Feel damn lucky to have made it through.  I was lucky to never get hurt bad.  I’m afraid I might be among the last bunch to retire out of the mines.  Coal mining is drying up.”

“If you don’t work in the mines, where else is there for work out here?”

“Hardly nothing.  You gotta drive.  Wheeling or Fairmount if you’re lucky, maybe farther.  Clarksburg, Parkersburg.  Hell, at the end there I had to drive a long way to get to a working mine.  My last mine was nearly a hunnert n’ twenty miles round trip.  And with the price of gas now?  Straight loss of spending money for people stubborn enough to keep living in these towns.  You can buy a house cheap, but you can hardly afford to live in it now with this damn inflation.  And then you can’t sell it for much.  It’s a shame to watch it happen.”

 “How’s retirement?”

“Best job I ever had.  I have grandkids.  That’s what I’m doing here today.  I live out of town, and I came to see my oldest play a ball game down to the school.  Figured I’d come early and have coffee with my friends.  We don’t see each other much anymore.  I don’t miss work, but I miss the people I used to see there.  Well, most of them anyway.”

He paused, then went on. 

“What did you do?  Seeins you’re on a trip in the middle of the week I figure you’re retired too.”

“Yeah.  I retired as early as possible.  I ran an agency that helped troubled families.  We did counseling, foster care, daycare, stuff like that.”

“That’s important stuff.  Heartbreaking though I bet.  Did you do much with substance abuse?”

“Yeah.  Not many problems are more destructive to families than addiction.  Hard to be a decent parent well when your full-time job is figuring out how to get more drugs.”

“We for sure know that here in West Virginia.  Lot of people my age are raising their grandkids.  My wife and I aren’t, thank God, but we have friends who are.  Hell, we have good friends that lost a kid to an overdose.  I don’t think they know to this day if it was an overdose or suicide or what.  First, it was Oxycontin, now it's Fentanyl.  I can’t keep up.”

“You know, this isn’t a clinical term, but when that kind of death happened in the families we were trying to help at the agency, I used to think of it as accidental suicide.  They may not intend to die, but their lives put them so close to the edge that death is always close by.  It’s awful to watch.  Addiction and mental illness both.  They don’t commit suicide, they die from their disease.”

“Awful for the ones that are left behind I know.”

We were both quiet for a moment.  I changed the subject.

“I just had my first grandchild.  Little girl.  Turned one in February.”

“Oh man, that’s a wonderful age.  Mine are all older than that now.  But heck every age is wonderful.  Look at this.”

He got out his phone, poked it a couple times, and turned the screen towards me.  On it were three smiling blonde kids on a bridge with mountains and a huge gorge in the background, their heads like stairsteps.  Little girl in front, two boys behind.

“That’s a handsome group there.”

“Lucky for us they live close.  They’re my son’s kids.”

“Does he work in the coal mine too?”

“No.  They both work retail in Wheeling.  He’s trying to work himself into regional sales.  We watch the kids for them when we can.  His Mom didn’t want him to work in the mines.  I wanted him to go to college, but he didn’t take my advice.  He had kids young.  The money is tempting in the mines but I’m afraid there’s no future in it.  Not sure there’s much future in what he’s doing now either but it’s safe and healthy.  They’re making it work.  We help as much as we can.  No pension in his future though I’m afraid.  I’m hoping I can leave him something.”

I looked up a picture on my phone.

“Here’s my granddaughter June.  First trip to the grocery store with her Mom a couple weeks ago.  Her Mom is my daughter.”

“Oh boy, she’s going to be a heartbreaker.”

“She already is.  When I saw this, I thought, first trip?  How’d they swing that?  But the pandemic you know?  Our daughter went through her whole pregnancy worried about catching the virus.  June’s Dad did all the shopping early in the morning before work.  They were very protective.  Still are.  We’re seeing her as much as we can.  We take a COVID test before we spend time with her. We live about 90 miles away.”

“Yeah.  These last two years were a hell of a time and COVID’s not over yet.”

“God, I hope it is.  I don’t know how much longer I can put up with living like I’m scared of my friends and neighbors.  Or a threat to my own family.  It’s a bad way to think, let alone live.”

“I feel the same way.  I got all the shots I could, but lots of people didn’t.  Some of ‘em paid for it too. 

That shut us both up.  COVID is a sobering topic. 

“So,” he went on, “if you want to know about Route 250, I can tell you you’re going to see a lot of trees and mountains, and towns like this one.  Some smaller than this, a few bigger.  It’s not a pretty picture.”

“I scouted them out some.  Phillipi?  Belington?  Pruntytown?”

“Pruntytown?”

He laughed out loud.

“You’ll be lucky if you know you drove through Pruntytown.  It’s pretty much just a prison.  Philip-eye, the way you’re sayin’ it, is in the bible.  Phila-pea is in West Virginia.  It’s got some size, maybe 2500 people nowadays.  Got a college there.  Floods bad though, Phillipi does.  It’s on that Tygart Valley River.  You’d find a hotel there.  Belington too.  They’re both better off than Cameron but not by much.  What are you really looking for?”

“Let me see if I can figure out how to answer that in a good way.”

“I’m trying to figure out West Virginia politics.  And your politicians.  Especially Joe Manchin.  We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want, but I don’t understand how he’s a Democrat and is still being elected when West Virginia has voted for Trump in such a big way.  Twice.  And even more the second time.”

He sat back in his chair.

“I try hard not to talk about politics around here.  But then, I likely won’t see you again after today.  So, I don’t suppose I’ll be making an enemy I got to live with anyway.”

“I’m not out to be anybody’s enemy.  I just want to learn that’s all.”