The BackWoods Drifter

This old bridge crosses Big Coal River in Edwight, WV. I would be afraid to even guess how old it is. At one time it supported coal and logging trucks. Up the road behind me there used to be a sawmill. I remember years ago when it was a viable place of employment. People worked at the mill or in the mines. I helped tear the sawmill down in the mid 80’s.

Right behind me is this overgrown softball field.

As a young boy I would come here to watch my dad play softball. This started out as a coal miners softball field and was actually built by the coal company. If I’m not badly mistaken, and I might be, but I believe the coal company was Armco back in those days.

After the miners quit using it and I got into my teens, we started having friendly games here between different hollows. It was just a good time and all in good fun.

I hear no one is allowed there now because the field belongs to the coal industry. I’m not 100% sure about that so don’t quote me. It just seems to me that if kids were allowed to play ball on this field - they would be.

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The title of this post came with the fact the bridge is over Big Coal River. About a mile upstream is Goals Coal, a subsidiary of Massey Energy. From this point forward the river winds it’s way through the heart of coal country. A Bridge Over Troubled Water seemed fitting.

Every once in a while, I go through all of my photo files. Most of the photos were taken within the past 3 or 4 years. A large part of them were taken while I was homeless. At any rate, I found these two of Big Coal River taken about 3 years ago.

The first one shows Coal River just a little above normal stage. I grew up fishing and swimming all up and down this section plus a mile or two in both directions. Since I grew up around water and learned to swim at an early age I’ve never been afraid of water…

…except when the river reaches flood stage. Or any river at flood stage makes me nervous. Some will think well of course it does but I think it makes me nervous in a slightly different way. There is no control for flood waters. They will go where they may. I think the thing that makes me nervous is the fact that it is so completely out of control. Even in the rivers natural bed the flood waters wreak havoc. I’ve never been afraid of falling in and drowning but was always afraid of falling in, getting beat to death for ten miles then drowning.

I can remember a time when a lot of the local roads didn’t have guard rails. What they did have was little wooden posts about 2 to 3 feet tall spaced about every 10 feet in a curve. Much like the ones you would see at any state park in the country. I can tell you from personal experience those wooden posts don’t do much but make the wreck a little worse. I took out six of them one time in the process of having a blowout and then rolled the car one and a half times over the mountain stopping with the car on its passenger side beside the river.

I remember back then hearing of people wrecking into flood waters. Believe it or not that happened a lot with the little wooden posts. Whether I knew the person or not I was always afraid for them. I remember too many of those stories.

With spring getting closer it is nearly time for the floods. Usually the spring thaw has a couple of accompanying floods with the main flood waters passing in just a day or two. I feel for people now located around mountaintop removal sites. I bet some of those people look on spring and the floods with mortal dread, wondering what is going to be left at the end of the flood season. We have good guardrails now to keep people from driving into the river - if we could only come up with a way to keep the rivers of mud and debris from running over people. Come up with a guardrail for that and you could make a fortune in West Virginia.