| Last week an article by a Charleston SC columnist managed to tick off a lot of West Virginians. Here is the story from A to
Z, including an apology, sorta....
Lead us not into West Virginia, but 'Deliverance' from evil
By Bryce Donovan
Post and Courier Staff
I guess we had it coming. On a road trip to Ohio this past weekend, my buddy Jay and I openly mocked West Virginia. We
laughed at the people, the small homes and the backward culture.
We came up with new state mottos for the surrounding states: "Hey, at least we aren't West Virginia." West Virginia's was
even better: "Yeah, we're sorry."
We laughed at Tudor's Biscuit World, a restaurant housed in a barn. We yelled at prisoners cleaning up the highway ("Your
state bites!"), gleefully counted the number of signs for a "gentleman's" club called Southern X-Posure (22) and even went so
far as to make banjo sounds every time we passed somebody with a West Virginia license plate, a moustache and a plaid
shirt (1,811,000 -- the state population).
So it was only a matter of time. The Mountain State would have its revenge.
We were driving through the state as part of a road trip from Charleston to Columbus, Ohio, for a Phish concert. The drive
up there was smooth sailing. The weather was good, and we made great time.
In Ohio, the concert was entertaining, Jay's friends were nice, and the snow was beautiful. Before I knew it, it was time to
leave and head back to sunny Charleston.
The trip home began no differently than the trip up. We laughed, listened to music and recounted stories. But once we
crossed the border into West Virginia, the jokes began again. We even had the nerve to stop for a photo op at Tudor's
Biscuit World.
Meanwhile, the state waited patiently, biding its time. Waiting for the right moment.
As we got back onto the highway, laughing, proud of our photographic brilliance, West Virginia jumped from the shadows to
drop its coal-mining fist.
It came in the form of a light on the dashboard -- the battery light.
Now this would have concerned me if Jay drove, say, a 2002 Lexus. But it's a '93 Saturn (1893), so it seemed like no big
deal. But when the airbag light came on 10 minutes later, I began to worry. Then the radio started to fade in and out. The
interior lights dimmed. And when the speedometer fell to zero while we were still going 75, I knew what was happening.
West Virginia was getting us back.
Jay pulled off the Interstate and turned into a gas station just as the car took its last breath.
I looked around to see where we were. To my left were trees, to the right was a creek, and up on a hill, almost as though it
were smirking down on us in all our misery, was Southern X-Posure.
Our situation was dire: It was a freezing Sunday afternoon, our car was dead, all the auto places were closed, and we were
stuck in the hometown of Bob "Gilligan" Denver -- Princeton, W.Va.
We grabbed our bags out of the trunk and began walking through the snow. After about 10 minutes, we found ourselves in
front of a motel that had two cars in the parking lot.
"Do you have a reservation?" the woman behind the counter asked. I laughed. She didn't.
West Virginia apparently didn't have a sense of humor.
But somehow she managed to squeeze us into one of the 122 vacant rooms.
Lying on my bed, reality hit home. I was going to die in West Virginia. And in my last days the state was going to teach me
some painful lessons: 1) Never take electricity and dentistry for granted. 2) Tudor's has the best gravy. 3) It's bad karma to
make fun of a place when you have to visit it a second time.
The next morning, refreshed, we decided West Virginia wouldn't take us down without a fight.
So we called a couple of places and found a garage that would pick up the car and try to fix it. After explaining the problem
to the mechanic, he told us the alternator was dead and would need to be replaced. And a mere three hours later, we had
paid the bill and were back on the road.
Even though we had a rough time, we had fought West Virginia and won.
But I'm not one to not learn from my mistakes. And in this instance there was a valuable lesson: The stereotype that most
West Virginians are moonshine-swilling, gap-toothed, banjo-playing, barefoot, inbred hillbillies in tattered clothes is simply
not true.
They all are.
Unemployment doesn't exactly beat working
By Bryce Donovan
Of The Post and Courier Staff
Want to get that special West Virginian in your life the perfect gift for Christmas? Well, I have just the thing -- a picture of me
hanging from a tree.
In case you missed it, last week I wrote a column about the Wild, Wonderful Mountain State. A humor column. A humor
column that didn't hit the mark with most West Virginians in the free world.
And boy did I hear about it.
The day the column ran I was bombarded with phone calls and e-mails. All from upset Mountaineers calling for me to be
fired, tarred and feathered and/or burned at the stake. In fact, many of them offered to do it themselves (including the paper's
features editor, my boss' boss, who is from Logan, W.Va.).
But don't take my word for it, put on some Hasil Adkins, sit back and read some of these e-mails for yourself:
"It's really a shame that you are going to lose your job. ... Good luck in your new career. I hear Tudor's (Biscuit World) is
hiring." -- Chad Pokrzywa
Don't toy with me like that. I need contact numbers.
"Maybe you would have seen more to make fun of if you had removed that Confederate flag from the back window -- the
one that all South Carolinians worship as if it were a holy icon." -- Dave Peyton
In my defense, it didn't cover the entire back window.
"We have some darn good banjo players. Come to the Vandalia Gathering on Memorial Day weekend and see and hear for
yourself." -- Paul Gartner
Is that a Ticketmaster event?
"Too bad a big coal truck didn't run over you when your car died, hopefully you won't be so lucky next time." -- Debbie
Mellich
After reading all this mail, I'm beginning to agree with you Debbie.
"Don't come home for Christmas." -- Mom
I have to admit, this one hurt the most.
"Thanks for taking the heat off us." -- University of Virginia Pep Band
But as punishing as the e-mails were, the phone calls were worse:
"Why don't you get a real job?"
Who would hire an employee who ticks off 1.8 million people a week (W.Va. state population)?
"That was real original."
Unfortunately, this voice mail wasn't. I got it about 15 times.
"Why you pickin' on my state, buddy?"
You can only make fun of Strom Thurmond so many times.
"Bryce, my name is Luke. I'm 19 years old and I hate you."
Take a number, Luke.
The other 184 of them were pretty similar. However, one West Virginian must have incurred $200 in long-distance charges
with all the messages he left featuring banjo music. They were very entertaining, though.
But it didn't stop with e-mails and voice mails.
An interview with the Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail followed. Then the Herald-Dispatch (Huntington, W.Va.). The
Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette wrote an editorial about it. Then radio stations got involved, wanting me to do interviews. A
local church made mention of it during a sermon. I got a call from the spokeswoman for West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise.
So it wasn't just a handful of West Virginians who didn't find my column funny. And I can't say that I blame them. The only
thing I blame them for is taking this little redneck from South Carolina too seriously.
But from all these e-mails and phone calls and upset readers, I learned several things:
(1) People in West Virginia can read -- and write.
(2) People in West Virginia are very proud of West Virginia.
(3) Working at Tudor's Biscuit World would be more fun than my job is right now.
(4) The Internet can make a mountain out of a pothole really fast, even if nobody drops 50 cents for my newspaper.
(5) And there's a moral to this story: Don't mock West Virginia.
It's not that some Mountaineers don't think it's funny.
They all don't.
"Take Me Home, Country Roads" John Denver
Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains Shenandoah River
Life is old there older than the trees
Younger than the mountains blowin' like a breeze
Country roads take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia mountain momma
Take me home country roads
GOOD MORNING LOWCOUNTRY (Comment By The Paper)
Preview columnist Bryce Donovan regrettably stirred up West Virginians this week by taking a trip there (Bryce is not only
disturbed, he's disturbing) and then writing satirically about it in his Thursday Preview column "It Beats Working."
He wrote that "the stereotype that most West Virginians are moonshine-swilling, gap-toothed, banjo-playing, barefoot,
inbred hillbillies in tattered clothes is simply not true.
"They all are."
We weren't looking for a fight with West Virginia, but now we've got one (see today's Letters to the Editor on Page 12A),
and it's Good Morning LowCountry's duty to do all it can to prevent camps from both states meeting in North Carolina and bludgeoning each other to death with garage tools.
Mad West Virginians include Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail columnist Brad McElhinny.
"The last time this sort of situation occurred, when the University of Virginia pep band made fun of West Virginia at the
Continental Tire Bowl, Gov. Bob Wise dashed off a letter demanding an apology," McElhinny wrote in Friday's Daily
Mail.
"This time, West Virginians are likely to trot out the heavy artillery: former state Treasurer A. James Manchin, who has
defended the state vigorously in the past against slights by late-night talk show hosts. Also, there is the option of strafing
Donovan's desk with gravy from Tudor's Biscuit World."
McElhinny also checked in with Donovan's editor, Steve Mullins, a native of Logan, W.Va.
Mullins stood by his reporter... sort of.
"Bryce is a moron," he said. "I'm going to see that he gets what's coming to him."
"West Virginia is a wonderful state," Mullins added to Good Morning LowCountry. "I really can't decide whether to kill him or to send him up to
live with my brother for a couple of days."
In his remaining days, Bryce is feeling the love by e-mail from the Mountain State:
... "You are a true idiot" ... "Ask forgiveness that you think such things about a wonderful state in our country" ... "Maybe you
would have seen more to make fun of if you had removed that Confederate flag from the back window" ... "I got your hay
for you."
Meanwhile, Mullins had second thoughts and released this statement to the press:
"Bryce's column is usually very funny. He has developed a certain audience that understands that he's usually joking. And
because he's very young, I am considering not killing him. However, I personally intend to edit every future column that
Bryce writes. We may even change the name of his column from 'Beats Working' to 'Montani Semper Liberi' (Mountaineers
are always free). I may assign him to cover a few Logan County Council meetings. I have a feeling he could learn a lot. And
if you're listening, Mr. Manchin, please forgive me."
WEST VIRGINIA -- WILD AND WONDERFUL
BRYCE DONOVAN'S LIST OF GREAT THINGS ABOUT WEST VIRGINIA
-- 1,811,000 beautiful people
-- Booker T. Washington, Chuck Yeager, Jerry West, Mary Lou Retton all hail from West Virginia.
-- About 250,000 white-water rafting enthusiasts raft West Virginia waters each year.
-- Nearly 80% of the state is covered by forests.
-- West Virginia has more than 1,000,000 acres of recreation areas including two national parks, 37 state parks, nine state
forests, 47 wildlife management areas and two national forests.
-- More than 45 percent of the U.S. population lives within a 500-mile-radius of West Virginia.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Apology owed
This is in response to Bryce Donovan's column, "Lead us not into West Virginia, but 'Deliverance' from evil" in Thursday's
Preview. As a native West Virginian, I find this story so completely offensive that I find it difficult to find a place to begin.
The column is simply intended to make fun of the entire state of West Virginia and to make fun of anything that this immature
writer finds funny, even at the expense of an entire state. It promotes stereotyping "the redneck" image, one that South
Carolina probably would like to shed as well.
I cannot understand the purpose of this column, and I feel that an apology is owed to all of West Virginia.
P.S. The movie "Deliverance" is set in Georgia, I believe, a lot closer to you than us!
CRAIG SNYDER,
413 Country Cove Estates,
Scott Depot, W.Va.
The best you've got?
Congratulations, Mr. Donovan. You have just become the 1 millionth person to make fun of the state of West Virginia
through the media.
You must be very proud to be the author of such an original, thought-provoking piece. As proud as I'm sure your editors and
management are that they hired such a brilliant young journalist with such incredible insight into the world around him.
Dentist jokes and "witty" state mottos? Is that truly the best you could come up with? Has the journalistic profession truly
fallen so far that lowbrow humor such as yours passes as credible in a respectable newspaper? You should be ashamed of
yourself for writing such trash, as should your editors and publisher for allowing it to be written in the name of their
paper.
In case you missed the sarcasm in my opening paragraph (and judging by your oh-so-observant column, it's a strong
possibility), I found your column to be offensive, mean-spirited, and (worse) factually inaccurate. As a West Virginian who
has also lived in other parts of the country, I am all too familiar with the ignorant comments of those who have never been
exposed to the wonderful people of West Virginia.
All they have ever seen or read of the state and its people are the equally ignorant comments of "writers" like yourself who
are either too lazy to do any research or too stupid to understand the need for it.
Just for the record, let me assure you that I not only have all my own teeth, but I have never touched either a banjo or
moonshine, have no inbreeding in my genes, and going by the fact that you recently attended a Phish concert (and judging by
the average salaries of our different professions), my clothes are probably considerably less "tattered" than your own.
In short, sir, you owe myself and all West Virginians an apology. In an historical town such as Charleston, one would think
that you would have a little more respect for a population that brings quite a bit of money into the area through tourism. If you
can't find it in yourself to be big enough to offer such an apology, I'm certain that your paper's advertising partners would be
more receptive of my complaints ... and those of other West Virginians I will make every attempt to rally to this cause.
ERIC SHINN,
5333 Pioneer Drive
Cross Lanes, W.Va.
A longer visit, perhaps
As a native of West Virginia who retired here in Mount Pleasant, your article was embarrassing and quite gauche (for you it
means crude).
Your presumption that South Carolina is so far ahead in education and sophistication is ludicrous. Your article also portrayed
West Virginians as dummies and know-nothings. Well, my friend, you may want to tell natives Lou Holtz, football coach of
South Carolina; Charles Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier; and Jerry West, of basketball hall of fame; that
West Virginians are ignorant.
I take offense that people like you make fun of that beautiful state. I hope you would take the time to spend a few days there
to find how friendly the people are.
CARL KLELE,
2763 Waterpointe Circle,
Mount Pleasant
The joke's on you
Mr. Donovan,
After reading your article about your experience in West Virginia, I have to say it's too bad your story didn't end up in the
Charleston Gazette. I can see the headlines now: "Deliverance From Ignorance."
Having recently returned from a trip to Charleston, S.C., on business, I find it humorous that you make fun about the state of
West Virginia. Take off the blinders and look around the great state of South Carolina. You don't have to walk too far from
Market Street to see poverty. A real laugher, huh? I, for one, do not think poverty and stereotypes are funny. Your obvious
lack of originality and attempt at poor humor is pitiful.
It's too bad your friend's car didn't break down on some snow-covered mountain 50 miles from nowhere. Then when you
were saved by some "inbred hillbilly," you might have a different view on the people of West Virginia, but I somehow doubt
it.
The next time my company needs to run a "help wanted" ad for our Charleston operations, I sincerely doubt it will be with
The Post and Courier. From your observations, it sounds as if I should run my ad in Princeton, W.Va. Do you think they will
be able to read it?
TIM STROTHER,
Vice President,
GStek Inc.,
426 Granada Drive,
Chesapeake, Va.
No deliverance
Bryce Donovan's Preview article was very offensive to me, a native West Virginian, and offensive to the truth.
His attempt to be humorous by smearing the state's "backward culture" and "small homes" apparently was based on a quick
trip along the West Virginia Turnpike, past billboards, mining tipples, and fast-food restaurants.
Donovan's destination -- the Phish concert in Columbus, Ohio -- seems to have left him daftly delirious for his return trip
through the mountain state. Too much Phish food, perhaps. His derisive pen and a less than astute editor allowed publication
of this final slap in the face: "The stereotype that most West Virginians are moonshine-swilling, gap-toothed, banjo-playing,
barefoot, inbred hillbillies in tattered clothes is simply not true. They all are."
Sorry, Mr. Donovan, but you will have no deliverance from the wrath of West Virginians who read The Post and Courier. I
think you owe them a written apology. You should be assigned a two-week information-gathering trip to the state of West
Virginia and perhaps you might then appreciate its beauty and the genuineness of its people.
IDA JANE GALLAGHER,
858 Sovereign Terrace,
Mount Pleasant
Slow news day?
The newspaper that represents the great city of Charleston, a most gracious and mannerly city, should apologize to the state
of West Virginia and its people for the Preview article.
It must have been a slow news day or the writer needed to justify his expense account. Either way, shame on you, Post and
Courier.
THELMS HARVEY,
2516 Mahan Court,
Mount Pleasant
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