Inspiring.

I spent a good bit of time riding a motorcycle all around the state of West Virginia over the course of three years. I visited every county, went to every corner, followed the entire perimeter and then went to the interior. I was most interested in seeing the geology, the history, and trying to understand where the communities are today and how they got to the state they are in. Which ones prospered, which did not, which existed because of free trading and routine migration and how many came into being as labor camps for chattel labor.

And I had seen the movie a few times. So I had to go down to Matewan and I've been back a couple of times. The old part of town is still there and its not far removed from what you see in the movie. There's a rebuilt rail road station, rebuilt by a giant coal company. What's not much seen in the movie is that the town is on the bank of a river; Kentucky is on the other side. The town sits in a basin and there are flood-gates at the bridge that spans the river. The river itself has steel walls along the length of its banks. So basically if the river floods over its banks the water goes to Kentucky so long as the West Virginia wall holds. If the wall breaks Matewan floods like right now.

Anyway you come down the hill into town and you can feel yourself going back in time and embrace the roots of the labor movement in this country. Everything that was every good for labor in this country began in Matewan and a hundred other places just like Matewan. I find it stirring just to visit the place. Park the bike up at the top of the Bank's parking lot, walk across the bridge into KY, come back and take a quick walk around the old down town. The town remains, old and unkempt, its enough to make you choke up if you know the story.

Oh, and the oddest thing in the world. It seems that now days Matewan is the world's capital for ATV's, those ubiquitous fucking 4-wheelers. I know nothing more about it than they are everywhere down there, something to do with a national magazine or something else I know next to nothing about.