Yes, today is West Virginia‘s Birthday! The state is 145 years old, which I’m sure most of Europe thinks is positively young, however, the Appalachian mountains are quite old–and probably related to mountain ranges in Great Britain. And don’t forget, our cities and counties have been around much longer than 145 years, and if Virginia hadn’t chosen the wrong side in the Civil War, I wouldn’t have to spend my life going, “No, it’s West Virginia. Yes, we have snow here. No, I don’t live near the beach.”

Nor would I be nearly as thankful for Arkansas and Mississippi as I am now.

When Chief Justice Rhenquist spoke here several years ago, he said the state was very lucky that Virginia had never challenged our statehood, because he wasn’t sure the cause would have held up in court.

Yet, despite everything, I fiercely love West Virginia.

Yes, we’re a poor state. Yes, we’ve got lots of problems. Yes, there are places in the state where ignorance thrives.

Yet the people are kind and generous.

In college I was riding around in the woods with my friend Andy, back from where we all would go camping on a regular basis, when he managed (through a series of unfortunate events) to destroy the battery in his jeep. We ended up not far from the kind of place that makes out-of-staters think of “Deliverance” and out in the yard was one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen. We explained the situation to him, and he went over to one of the trucks in his yard, pulled out the battery, handed it to Andy, and said, “Y’all go get a new battery, and just bring this back when you’re done.”

He wouldn’t take money or anything else. So we went to town, got a new battery, and then took his battery back to him.

Those are the kind of people you meet here in West Virginia.

If I get in my car and drive in any direction, within fifteen to twenty minutes I’m surrounded by trees, with houses few and far between. Sure, I’ll eventually come to another town or city, but for the most part you drive through woods, with shade and cool temperatures in the summer, and spectacular color in the fall. Even living in the center of town as I do I walk out on my front porch and see trees–most of the steeper hills in town are still wooded; it hasn’t been worth the effort to try and build on those hills, though I fear that may change in the near future.

And so despite her faults–and I admit we have many–I love this state, and am proud to live here.