Jeremiah Watt

I am up when the chore time call is made by Gregg at about 6am. Gregg's oldest boy Eli is a 4th year student at the Virginia University at Wise and also a member of the Golf Team. Gregg's other boy is a greade 12 Honor Student at BIg Stone Gap Highschool. SO cattle and horses all need to be fed before the boys can leave for school.


With chores done up, I pack my gear and shed the denim for Spandex. I notice on the trip back to Coeburn where Gregg will drop me off that Gregg covers his head any time we go thru a small town where folks may know him..............just not sure what that was all about??? I get dropped right where I was picked up so I do not gain nor loose miles from my trip. I leave Coeburn on route 58, and have a afternoon with plenty of hills to climb before I get off to another road.


During the ride I pass the Old RUssel County Courthouse and also home of Log Cabin Crafts. The buildings are real pretty, but unfortunatly also all locked up. But there was one oddity I should mention. The folks who ran it, had plastic crap of all sorts strung and sitting everywhere. I mean, here is a real neat old log cabin and plastic lawn chairs sitting on the front porch. Here is a split rail froint porch with 2 or 3 plastic himmingbird feeders etc, and it just went on and on.



FOr an avid photographer, it was almost a waste of time trying to take a pic, becasue no matter what you shot some sort of plastic would show up..............I found it somewhat of an irony especially since they had a neat hand made sign claiming Log-Cabin Crafts and Folk Arts??? Okay folks, I know I am being picky here but why do the preserve historic buildings, and cover them with modern plastic trappings???



I rode on till I hit my little worm trail road that leads me north by east up a small valley. I had ridden maybe 10 miles and I stopped to talk to a father and son who were putting up Tabaca in the barn. They were putting up shorts, or end cuts as they also call it. Hard work for maybe 2 months putting up Tabaca.


BUt it is the best paying crop fpor a small family farm, and Albert the father ands son Andrew like doing the work. They feel the Tababca market is much better now that the Government Quota's are removed. And the subsidies are gone, so everyone can get in or out of the market as they choose.


Its raining, so I get a few items of rain gear on and head towards Brumley Gap, I find a few apple trees along the road and avail myself of the sweet delights that come with stolen................borrowed apples really, since I did give them the core back. I carry on this very narrow very twisty rolller coaster road that runs deep between two ridgfes that flank me on iether sie. The ridges are covered with trees from top to bottom, and often they come together to form and arch under which I and the highway run together.

I finally come to Haytville, marked by a Church that sits only feet from the roadway, and actually had to be moved over 8 feet so as to not sit right in the road way. Haytvill, has been here since 1815, and a very good photo of this town resides a little further on at the Saltville Museum. I am about to leave when I spot a rarity out this way.......a lemon tree that I am told shows up in a picture taken of the once town from back in 1875. The tree though not very tall, and with very unusualk shaped leaves has huge thorns on it ranging from 1-2.5 inches long. I ate one lemon just to see what it was like...................I found that it indeed tasted like a LEMON.

I kept pedalling, and watching the sky as it darkened with heavy grey clouds and more rain fell as I rode. I spotted a small country Church with a covered picnic area off to my left, so I made a bee-line for that sanctuary. It had all that I needed, a tabl;e to eat on and a roof to keep me dry. I had a simple dinner of Soup that night, just couldn't bring myself to put noodles in it...........Poochie Maggie, I am getting so tired of noodles.

I also had a dinner guest, a young fella who lived across the street came by for a visit. HIs name is Jaydon, and he is 9 years age. NIce kid with an unfair start too life from the way I see it, but I won't go into family details from this blog. JAydon left me when his Mother called him back home, and shortly after Mom and a man left, I noticed Jaydon came back with Yahtzee and some Cards too play with me. We began a game of Yahtzee, but I noticed that Jaydon was a cheat to the extreme level, and I made subtle mention of it which seemed to curb his enthusiasim for the game. We then tried a game of cards, but the same result was made clear, no such thing as a normal game in both cases it need to be cheated to be enjoyed.

SO, I invited Jaydon to dine with me, and told him a little about myself and asked more about himself and his very extended family. The soup is ready, and I split the can with my young guest............the bigger reason to invite him to eat with me is to engage him in Prayer , and I openly Prayed for Jaydon to know and receive Christ in his life, and that the soup was not too badly burned. To the second part of the Prayer, I know it turned out just great. Then Jaydon showed me a NEW THING.............crunching crackers and putting them in your soup...........I played my part real well, and was amazed at teh great taste this gave the soup..........he thought that this was great.

Then Jaydon left, and I cleaned up my dishes and rolled out my bed on a picnic table. Young Jaydon came back to talk to me a little more. He was very intyerested in California, and had somewhat of a "fairy-tale view" of the state with all folks being rich, and all folks living on the coast in a mansion etc. I told him all that I could, and made acase for what the rest of California really looked like. A car puuled up, and a young fella steps out to chek on Jaydon and see who I am camping at the local Church that so far non of them attend.


Once that is out of the way, I get the same Cal questions from this fellow who is almost 20 and has the same misconception of what the State is all about. These folks leave and Jaydon begins with a leg pulling story about how he needs top smoke cigarette butts to avoid having bad headaches. SO, as he produces a butt, we talk a little about the properness of a boy 9 smoking, but more about the long trerm results of smoking period. Finally I tell Jaydon, that he is welcome to visit with me, but not smoke when he is with me............Jadon leaves for home......

About 1/2 hour goes by and Jaydon is back but this time with his future Step Dad, who may be all of 25 at the most. Thie fellow Steven, a nice guy raised locally and having not left the county is all fired up about California and has the identical notions that all the rest have had.........California is MONEY, MOVIESTARS, MANSIONS..........
SO, we talk about it at length, what we look like, what we produce and what we do for jobs out that way. All this time Jaydon is smoking his cigarettes under the protection of his about to be step-Dad who at one point asks for a cigarette from Jaydon. We talkm hunting, we talk bears which there are plenty of, and we talk PANTHERS something they see often around these here hills. Then in the pouring rain, I am invited to come with them and get some wild Brumley Gap Apples. SO we walk just up the road, and then over a ditch and into a field to pick wild apples at night....................6-8 apples later and we are headed back to my camp site. The apples are very god, quite tart and very firm and crisp................but the outsides would make a Preacher flush.............the skins are a mottled black and red color.............they look like cannon balls from Hell more than a scrumptous apple that they are.
Company is gone, and I crawl into my tent which I have tied to the top of the table.

I am all snuggled in, and I can see headlights pull up to my camp and the screech of brakes.............so, I know it is Steven and JAydon once again. Then I hear Steven calling me outside the tent...........I unzip and talk to them. What they want is too give me a pair of rubber boots to ride in since my cycling shoes are not water proof...........it takes me a while to convince them that I cannot clip in a pair of rubbers like I can the shoes I have. Reluctantly they leave for the last time.

It rained all night, and I hear of anywhere from 1 inch to as much as 3 inches fell, and I don't know the exact as to where I camped...............but I do know that it rained steady all night...................but baby I was dry. Thanks be to the Lord, and these Churches with a covered Picnic area.

Good Night and God Bless