I had been driving for what seemed like miles and miles on a one lane dirt road when I finally came upon the church and stopped. I got out of the truck and watched the dust I had raised drift over the edge of the mountain. The air was cool at this elevation. The first promises of spring were in the breeze and the sunlight.
I was somewhat disappointed. In front of me stood a plain wooden clapboard building. At first, I wasn't sure it was a church at all but then I spotted the sign over the front doors. This was not the quaint country church that I had hoped to find. The empty and neglected church building had no steeple, no pointed or stained glass windows, no columns or decorated cornices. As I stood in the silence and looked past the unlovely church across the mountains, it seemed about the most lonesome place I had ever been.
I am here alone, with no sound but the breeze rising in the mountain hollow behind this empty church, stirring the budding trees.
A reader recently left the following comment on this post. (I am reposting because the comment included a phone number which is probably best not published on the internet)
ReplyDelete"my name is joshua smith. i live on hightop beside the church and would like 2 know if someone will eventually preach there again. the pughs r in there goin bad. my grandfather preached there and lived up there. when i was little my granddad ran off the mountain 2 get help when i burned my leg. there was no phones. now i live up there like the old time people. haha. all of my family r buried up there. its quit up there. the people in the graveyard dont talk much. lol. also some kids tore the church up but im up there now. "
My great grand parents lived there and my grand father moved from there as a young laid to Berkeley co Wv John IRA McDaniel we use to go there til I was about twelve yes old in fall of the year lots of food and people dressed old timely loved it we use to come in truck loads
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