Peggy Noonan comes to West Virginia:
I have just been there for the first time, and it is a jewel of a state. It is like an emerald you dig from a hill with your hands.
You know when you’ve passed into it from the east because suddenly things look more dramatic. You get the impression you’re in a real place. All around you are mountains and hills and gullies, gulches and streams. The woods wherever I went were thick and deep. From Morgantown to Ballengee a squirrel can jump from tree to tree. It is a tall state–the hills, trees and mountains–and shadowy-dark, with winding roads, except for where it’s broad and beige and full of highway, courtesy of Robert Byrd. The highways are perfect looking, unstained by wear and tear, and not many people seem to use them.
Nice story. And while she makes it sound like a conservative paradise that might strike you libs as hell on earth, it isn’t. People here are just, well, sensible and easygoing.
(Via Don Surber)