Hurricane, 2008

In the spring of 2008, my grandfather and I travelled the backroads from Florida to his childhood home in Hurricane, West Virginia. We spent our conversations hoping to understand each other beyond our deep philosophical disagreements; we filled in the blanks of his family line, cruising the local graveyard circuit; I wanted to see strip mining and its effects first hand; and Papaw tried to quit smoking. We didn’t find all that much consensus; the destruction was a violent modification that retained a kind of beauty; Papaw didn’t quit smoking. We did find out that his first name wasn’t George, it was John: John George Michael Farley.