Today’s column is going to be a hodgepodge of things, because I turned 42 on Thursday and my mind has been in reminiscing mode.

I was 22 in the summer of 2004. I was a college dropout from Ohio Valley University for more than a year at that point. I was living on the campus of Parkersburg Bible College with my friend (and now Rev. Stephen Kuntzman, who officiated my wedding in 2016). I attended church at Spreading Truth Ministries and played bass guitar and sang in the worship band.

At that point, I assumed the likelihood of a journalism career was quite remote. I was donating plasma for cash before being hired at the new Shoe Carnival. I didn’t drive, so I would walk to catch the bus to the Grand Central Mall in Vienna.

But I had never stopped writing. My high school classmate Molly Radcliff gave me an invite to LiveJournal at some point in 2003. In July 2004 I was a few weeks away from launching a blog through the Blogger platform under the name “Holywriter,” a play on the phrase “holy roller” often used as a derogatory term from oneness Pentecostals.

It makes me cringe to go back and read my old blogs, see all the typos and grammatical mistakes, look at my takes on politics as I was still discovering what I believed (I was somewhere between neocon and libertarian, and perhaps still am), and the way-too-blunt descriptions of my young love life. I was very emo.

Yet, blogging led me to so many things and connected me to writers and people here in West Virginia and across the nation that I’m still connected to today. I had a meeting in Huntington Thursday with one of those bloggers: Bill Gardner, who now is a professor at Marshall University and working to create their new Cybersecurity Center.

Blogging was the foot in the door that led me back to news reporting in 2006 for local print and radio in the Mid-Ohio Valley: Results Radio and the now-defunct Marietta Register. My freelance writing led me to the career I now enjoy.

In July 2004 I was a few months away from moving in with a friend from OVU. And a few months after that I moved into the Williams Street apartment with new roommates; the place where I met the friends who helped me get through my mid-20s.

Turning 42 isn’t a milestone in and of itself. But I do wonder if I built a time machine and told my 22-year-old self what his life would be like 20 years later if it would blow his mind. It certainly blows my mind now.

I’m happily married to the woman I’ve called friend and partner for 13 years. I own a home and a relatively newer used car. And I’m an award-winning reporter and columnist. I’m a frequent guest on statewide radio and TV. I’ve been butt-dialed by Gov. Jim Justice before. And I’m just a poor boy from Tin Can Holler in St. Marys.

I’m not trying to brag; I’m trying to express gratitude. I’m thankful for the experiences I’ve had over the last 20 years that have led me to this point in my life.

—

Thinking about my life has also made me think a little bit about U.S. Senator/GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance and his book “Hillbilly Elegy.”

“Hillbilly Elegy” is a complicated book in our region. Some people really relate to it, while others hate it, saying it unfairly stereotypes our region (I’m trying hard not to say Appalachia, because as I’ve written about before, I hate the over-use of that term).

I’m someone who relates to the book as far as Vance’s memoir goes. Luckily, I had both parents in the picture, but following my parents’ divorce combined with my dad’s shift work, I too was cared for by my grandma at least through my middle school years.

I too had a complicated relationship with my mother whom I loved, but her intellectual disability and addictions made it hard to spend time with her as I got older. I read the book, but I also watched the Ron Howard-directed movie and to use the language of today’s generation, I was triggered several times. I guess I didn’t realize that amount of childhood trauma I still had inside.

Now, that doesn’t mean I agree with everything in the book. I do think at the time it came out it explained a good deal of why Donald Trump (whom Vance was critical of back then) appealed to Rust Belt voters and blue-collar workers who traditionally supported Democratic candidates.

Other conclusions I disagree with, including placing the blame for Rust Belt/Appalachian poverty on NAFTA and other free trade agreements. I tend to agree with Kevin Williamson, a writer for The Dispatch who also reviewed “Hillbilly Elegy” for Commentary Magazine, when he says our region has been a high-poverty region since the founding of the republic, so free trade policies are not the cause of our issues here.

It’s definitely hard to square Vance, the writer of “Hillbilly Elegy,” with Vance, the populist U.S. senator who could be the next vice president of the United States. I’d argue they are two different people and an example of how the former Reaganite wing of the Republican Party has either been forced to change or retreat.