I was born and raised in the state of West Virginia and lived there until I was 22 years-old.  Although I no longer call this state my home, I still hold some of it dear to my heart.  When I hear misconceptions about my home state I can’t help but get offended or irked.  So sit back and read for a spell while I tell you about West Virginia….for real.

First, let me acknowledge and confirm a few assumptions about the state.  “Poor white folk,”  yes.  West Virginia is, for the most part, a poverty state.  When I left it 2006, Wal-Mart was the #1 employer in the state.  96% of the population is white.  So yeah, West Virginia has quite a lot of poor white people.  It’s a reality there and not as funny as it sounds.  Also an unfortunate consequence of this is that welfare is abused quite a lot in West Virginia.  I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen refuse to work and sit around all day drinking beer and smoking and gambling….all thanks to welfare.

Coal Miners are something that is also associated greatly with West Virginia.  The state is one of the nation’s top coal producers.  But the mining goes on in only certain areas of the state.  You can’t just go anywhere and see a man covered in black dust coughing his lungs out.  Where I lived (the North-Central part of the state) there were almost no miners.  All the mines had been used up and the equipment moved elsewhere.  Mining isn’t quite as prevalent as you might assume.

West Virginia IS an obese state.  There are quite a lot of large people.  I can’t dispute this one.  At any festival or fair you can see that the number of large people is a bit more than the number if slimmer people.  Sedentary lifestyles and horrible diets abound.

Now let me start correcting a few misconceptions about West Virginia.  First of all (especially to the folks on the Western side of the U.S.) West Virginia IS it’s own state.  I can’t tell you how many times I have had to argue with someone who insists that it’s western Virginia, not a separate state. 

Second, West Virginians DO wear shoes.  I don’t know where that stupid assumption came from, but there are no bare feet in that state unless we’re at home or it’s a drunk redneck stumbling about town.  And no, the shoes aren’t homemade from dish towels or anything, they are bought from a shoe store, same as anywhere else. 

Third, West Virginians DO have indoor plumbing.  Now due the the poverty levels, you will see the odd household that doesn’t have running water, but it’s not common.  There are indoor toilets!  If there are outhouses, they are a novelty.  My great-grandparents had an outhouse on their property, but that was because they never got around to taking it down and covering the hole.  They had indoor plumbing.

Fourth, West Virginia WAS NOT a Confederate state!  West Virginia split from Virginia in order to join the Union.  I’m also addressing the idiotic West Virginia natives driving their jacked up trucks covered in Confederate flags.  West Virginia was part of the Union!  Today it is considered a Southern state because the majority of the state lies below the Mason-Dixon line, but that does not mean it was a Confederate State.  This was taught to ALL OF US in elementary school!  (As you can tell, this one irritates me greatly.)  Also, not al West Virginians have a Southern accent.  The people to the south of the state do, but those of us in the North Central part and in the panhandles sound much more Yankee.  The only word I’ve ever been called out on is the way I say “water.”  I draw the “a” sound a bit more than a Yankee.

Fifth, West Virginians don’t all live in trailers or old mining shanties.  This one is just offensive.  Yes, there are quite a lot of trailers and double wides in this state but that’s because they are CHEAP (poverty state, remember?).  But there are also a lot of houses.  There are cities full of perfectly decent houses!  I, myself, lived in an honest-to-God HOUSE.  Seriously, though, there are more houses than trailers.

I have to be honest, though and let all of you foreigners know that if you’ve never been to West Virginia, there’s no reason to go.  There’s nothing there of any real interest.  If you’re a bungee jumper, I’m sure you’ve been the the New River Gorge.  It’s beautiful there; not to mention the monster drop off of the bridge.  In the fall, that state is one of most beautiful places in this whole country.  All of those trees with their autumnal colors covering the soft Appalachian Mountains is breath-taking.

The pride and joy of the whole state is West Virginia University and her Mountaineer football team.  Ok, there are the people who say Marshall is better, but as a former student of WVU, I can say, without pause, that they are WRONG!  The whole state goes crazy for the Mountaineers and every win is considered a win for the whole state. 

The two unique foods coming out of West Virginia are pepperoni rolls and hot dogs.  To a West Virginian, pepperoni rolls are almost an everyday food.  We find it crazy that no other state indulges in this pleasure.  I learned to make them before I left and enjoy them to this day.  And the hot dogs?  Well a West Virginian eats a strange kind of hot dog.  There’s the West Virginia Dog that is topped with coleslaw.  Personally, I don’t care for that one.  The other, which is a typical hot dog in the state, is the hot dog served with chili, ketchup, mustard, and onions.  The chili has no beans, btw.  I never found this odd until I left the state and got weird looks at hotdog stands when I would ask for chili on my dog.  When I would get chili, the stuff had beans.  YUCK! 

There’s also a rich sense of heritage in West Virginia.  This comes from most of the natives of the state being several generations rooted into the state.  Nobody ever leaves.  Everybody knows a good ghost story, everybody knows a small-time moonshiner, and everybody likes to have a good time.  You can hear blue grass music, country music, pop music, rock n’roll, or even techno music in West Virginia.  You can see people with mullets, but you can also see people making fun of the mullets.  You can see good teeth, bad teeth, or no teeth. 

For the most part, West Virginia is not so different from any other state I have visited.  Even in my current home state of Washington I see mullets and bad teeth.  I hear strange accents and see poverty.  I don’t know how to end this except to say that I just wanted to set the record straight.  Although I’d pretty much rather catch my hair on fire than live in WV (that’s the way to abbreviate the state.  Not W.Va.  That’s antiquated), I do still get bothered when people wrongly assume things about the state.  I guess at heart, I’m still a West Virginia gal.

This was just sent to me.  Good news.