Going Home

About a month ago I returned to Wheeling to participate in a memorial service for my sister.  Things have changed since I left in 1976. It is always fun to tour the home town and see the changes.  Most amazing is how the whole place has shrunk. It is like it was put in the dryer and everything shrunk.  The problem is I have been living in the west for most of my life. There is so much room in the west that houses are not squeezed together.  The sky is vast in the west and you can always see for miles. Back in Woodsdale where yards used to seem like they had some size now I realized how small the play space was.  At the end of the street where the new Woodsdale School is the park seem tiny and unused. That park was so important for make up football and softball games. Where the old drug store stood on the corner there is now a gas station convenience store.  We used to go along the hedge of the park and pick out the pop bottles. You could get a nickel for a big 7up bottle, and that would buy a candy bar at the drug store. Vance Church looks pretty much the same. We used to have Bible School there on Wednesdays and Charlie Jones would always throw my Bible out the second floor window.

The interstate has eaten Wheeling alive.  Bridges have sprung up like weeds. One of my first jobs was as a highway inspector when they put the interstate heading South through East Wheeling.  So much was obliterated. South Wheeling also took a major hit from the highway construction. With my little sister I stood atop Wheeling hill by the old castle.  You could see down where Blaw Knox used to be. I remember when they dug up the cemetery in Fulton to put the interstate through. My little sister and I stopped where Elby’s used to be and had breakfast. Long ago there was a roller rink across the creek from there.  I remember when they tore it down. Down the national road the old car was is still there. I remember when my mother kept her foot on the brake and busted the chain at the car wash. The car wipers went nuts, but my mother was not going to move until the fog cleared on the windshield.  It seems like the famous DiCarlos Pizza is gone. Someone must have bought them out.

The abandonment of downtown is amazing.  It was an active place in the old days. I remember going to Stone and Thomas to marvel at the Christmas stuff.  Up on the hill in Woodsdale across from Vance Church there used to be some kind of old brick building, then there was some sort of quarry or mine. Now there is a hotel that overlooks Wheeling college.  The general condition of the houses in Woodsdale have gone down hill. The people with the cheese have moved farther out into the hills.

We had the memorial for my sister at the old Wheeling Country Club.  As close as we lived to it, I never was there in it’s glory days, but every doctor in the old neighborhood was a member.  I remember hearing tales of drunks getting out of hand there. Also I will never forget about the story of my grandmother hitting the jackpot there on the slot machine.  She held her dress out to catch all the coins.

After living in the west so long it took some getting used to driving on the narrow cow paths.  Seeing how all the businesses evolved into something else is interesting. One of the saddest things in Wheeling is how all the grand old mansions, and houses have disappeared. Wheeling had so many elegant homes that no one could afford to upkeep.  The homes have been turned into apartments or torn down. The old saying is “ You can’t go home again”. That is so true, it is just not there. It felt like a Civil War soldier going back to a battlefield only to find it is a shopping mall.