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Thanks, Neighbors

One little town my wife and I drove through while taking a break from the daily grind earlier this month could have been any of dozens in West Virginia. We noticed a sign on the main road, advising that donations for flood victims could be left there.

But the town isn’t in the Mountain State. It’s a nice little place called Stanley, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia.

A few days earlier, we’d been in Gettysburg, Pa., for the annual reenactment of the Civil War battle there. At one tent where I stopped, a woman in 19th-century dress asked where I lived. She wanted to know if we’d been affected by the floods. She asked how those in the flood-ravaged counties were doing.

In some ways, it has been easy during the past few years for West Virginians to wonder whether our situation is an us-against-the-world dilemma. President Barack Obama’s all-out assault on coal mining, supported, it seems, by the vast majority of our fellow Americans, can be blamed.

But there’s nothing like a backs-against-the-wall situation — and that’s what it’s like for many West Virginians in the flood counties — to make you realize how many really good friends you have.

During more than a week in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, I saw numerous examples of our neighbors worried about us and doing what they could to help.

Understand this about them: They don’t buy the stereotypes about Mountain State residents that seem prevalent in much of the country. They’re our neighbors. They know us.

Many of them are very much like us. I met some of the residents of Stanley. You could pick the town up, drop it down in, say, Pocahontas County, and the people there would feel at home in many ways. West Virginians would not feel as if several hundred outsiders had been dumped in our midst.

By the way, if you’re from out of state and don’t recognize that’s a compliment to the folks in Stanley, don’t try to figure it out. You wouldn’t understand.

Throughout the Ohio Valley, individuals and organizations rushed to help flood victims. We expect that from our fellow Mountain State residents. It’s just who we are.

But we ought to remember we have very, very good friends in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky. It’s who they are, too.

One of these days, something bad may befall them, too. When and if it does, I hope they’ll let us know immediately so we can be there for them as they are being for us.

Thanks, neighbors.

Myer can be reached at: mmyer@theintelligencer.net.

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