"Where do you live?" he asked. "Soon, I'll be living at the end of Mill Creek holler!" I said. "What?" came the reply. Yep, down the holler. It's a very old term meaning "down the road a spell" or, "down in the valley a ways," I am told.
"Step out 'n give a yell down the holler to your brother and sister and have 'em come in and wash. Supper's ready!..."
... and so the story starts. That's Mill Creek Holler, yes, West Virginia, where the mountains are rugged, the water is clean and the air crisp. But for how long will this pristine little corner of heaven on earth remain that way? That's what we are trying to find out now that a shadow has been cast over these lands.
Will this story make history? A lot of people believe so. It's a story that belongs to all West Virginians. My story is not even a chapter in the book now being written. It may at best be a page, or a couple of paragraphs. I have barely started dreaming, and yet, the journey is already almost a decade old.
I have been asked many times, "Why did you pick West Virginia, for heavens sake, and of all places, God forsaken Mill Creek? Couldn't you pick a better place?" But as far as I am concerned, this is the "better place" and I found it, after years of searching and looking around. Seven years to be precise. Where did I look? Everywhere, really. From Washington State to Florida, from Texas to Maine, Utah, Idaho, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia. I crossed the country. I searched high and low and in between. Then one day I found WV and fell in love with it. I like the Appalachians. I like Blue Grass the same way I like Mississippi Blues. And yes, I looked there too! But West Virgina has mountains. It is wild and rough and the land is still in many ways in pristine condition. I wanted a piece of land that had not been violated. I wanted trees. Plenty of trees. I wanted water and lots of it: a river, or a creek, and springs, ponds, or all of these if possible. I wanted a place with wildlife and not many people. And WV, Mill Creek, is where I found it all.
And then, West Virginia is a state with a motto that spoke to me: Montani Semper Liberi! Mountaineers Are Always Free ---- that sounded like home to me. And didn't West Virginia Secede from Virginia? That's why the state is sometimes referred to as the "child of the rebellion." So, I thought, it took nerve, it took guts to become the 35th state of the Union. Rebellious people. I liked that. What about the stereotypes? West Virginians being called hicks and hillbillies? By definition, the words mean what? People that are not sophisticated and live in the backwoods. So what? I take that as a compliment. People only try to ridicule that which they fear. They try to put down what they can't reach or have. I am told that people from other states and even from sophisticated WDC drive all the way to West Virginia to enjoy what the mountains have to offer. Game, trout, a weekend away from the bustling city, a down-to-earth tranquility they can't find elsewhere. West Virginians have more than a handful of reasons to be proud of their state. West Virginia, Mill Creek, a God forsaken place? I don't think so!
So I decided to get my savings, get a loan, buy land and call West Virginia home. I'll move there, I thought, and when I die, I want to be buried there. Ever since I was a kid I thought you only truly belong in a place that cradles the bones of your ancestors. The land I found even has a cemetery on it that dates back to the mid 1800s. I'll be buried here. My kids and grand-kids will live here. We will have a family plot on this land and they will know they belong here.
These things take time. I was a teenager when I started thinking about getting my own land and homesteading. My mother had the same dream. I decided that I would see it happen. I would make it happen. This, I thought, will be my legacy to my children. If you own a piece of land in a place like West Virginia, you will never go hungry. If you have woods, you will never go cold. With springs bubbling out of the ground and a creek crossing your property, you will never go thirsty. All it takes is work. Ingenuity. A desire to make things happen.
Then, mid 2014, I was told about a pipeline that some big gas company wants to lay across my land. I said no. I said thank you, but no thank you. And that's really where the story begins, because before that, it's not a story that deserves to be told. It was just happening. You have a dream, you build it up. You make it happen. That's what most folks do. You don't tell people, "Hey, I am breathing." You just do. Well, that's the way it was. It was all just happening naturally. Focus, channel your energies. Will it, and work to make it a reality and it will become your vision. I was not going to tell a soul, other of course than family and close friends. I was just doing what needed to be done, so my dream could become a reality. I would leave my job and move to the woods and homestead, and develop my own little corner of heaven: Eden Springs. My very own little corner of Heaven on Earth.
But then the pipeline came and I felt my dream threatened. Where do we stand now? We stand firm and we continue to say, "NO! Thank you, but no thank you!" to the surveyors and to the pipeline. It's not part of the dream. It will ruin the land. It will rape it. It will gut it and ruin it.
I was first contacted by the pipeline people back in July 2014.
Will this story make history? A lot of people believe so. It's a story that belongs to all West Virginians. My story is not even a chapter in the book now being written. It may at best be a page, or a couple of paragraphs. I have barely started dreaming, and yet, the journey is already almost a decade old.
I have been asked many times, "Why did you pick West Virginia, for heavens sake, and of all places, God forsaken Mill Creek? Couldn't you pick a better place?" But as far as I am concerned, this is the "better place" and I found it, after years of searching and looking around. Seven years to be precise. Where did I look? Everywhere, really. From Washington State to Florida, from Texas to Maine, Utah, Idaho, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia. I crossed the country. I searched high and low and in between. Then one day I found WV and fell in love with it. I like the Appalachians. I like Blue Grass the same way I like Mississippi Blues. And yes, I looked there too! But West Virgina has mountains. It is wild and rough and the land is still in many ways in pristine condition. I wanted a piece of land that had not been violated. I wanted trees. Plenty of trees. I wanted water and lots of it: a river, or a creek, and springs, ponds, or all of these if possible. I wanted a place with wildlife and not many people. And WV, Mill Creek, is where I found it all.
And then, West Virginia is a state with a motto that spoke to me: Montani Semper Liberi! Mountaineers Are Always Free ---- that sounded like home to me. And didn't West Virginia Secede from Virginia? That's why the state is sometimes referred to as the "child of the rebellion." So, I thought, it took nerve, it took guts to become the 35th state of the Union. Rebellious people. I liked that. What about the stereotypes? West Virginians being called hicks and hillbillies? By definition, the words mean what? People that are not sophisticated and live in the backwoods. So what? I take that as a compliment. People only try to ridicule that which they fear. They try to put down what they can't reach or have. I am told that people from other states and even from sophisticated WDC drive all the way to West Virginia to enjoy what the mountains have to offer. Game, trout, a weekend away from the bustling city, a down-to-earth tranquility they can't find elsewhere. West Virginians have more than a handful of reasons to be proud of their state. West Virginia, Mill Creek, a God forsaken place? I don't think so!
So I decided to get my savings, get a loan, buy land and call West Virginia home. I'll move there, I thought, and when I die, I want to be buried there. Ever since I was a kid I thought you only truly belong in a place that cradles the bones of your ancestors. The land I found even has a cemetery on it that dates back to the mid 1800s. I'll be buried here. My kids and grand-kids will live here. We will have a family plot on this land and they will know they belong here.
These things take time. I was a teenager when I started thinking about getting my own land and homesteading. My mother had the same dream. I decided that I would see it happen. I would make it happen. This, I thought, will be my legacy to my children. If you own a piece of land in a place like West Virginia, you will never go hungry. If you have woods, you will never go cold. With springs bubbling out of the ground and a creek crossing your property, you will never go thirsty. All it takes is work. Ingenuity. A desire to make things happen.
Then, mid 2014, I was told about a pipeline that some big gas company wants to lay across my land. I said no. I said thank you, but no thank you. And that's really where the story begins, because before that, it's not a story that deserves to be told. It was just happening. You have a dream, you build it up. You make it happen. That's what most folks do. You don't tell people, "Hey, I am breathing." You just do. Well, that's the way it was. It was all just happening naturally. Focus, channel your energies. Will it, and work to make it a reality and it will become your vision. I was not going to tell a soul, other of course than family and close friends. I was just doing what needed to be done, so my dream could become a reality. I would leave my job and move to the woods and homestead, and develop my own little corner of heaven: Eden Springs. My very own little corner of Heaven on Earth.
But then the pipeline came and I felt my dream threatened. Where do we stand now? We stand firm and we continue to say, "NO! Thank you, but no thank you!" to the surveyors and to the pipeline. It's not part of the dream. It will ruin the land. It will rape it. It will gut it and ruin it.
I was first contacted by the pipeline people back in July 2014.
