It’s one of the few things my boomer father and I can bond together with.
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Russell Yann died back in January, but his daughter is going to carry on with the family business. Also, I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of Country Club Bakery as the originator of pepperoni rolls, although Collassesano’s is much better!
That cleared that up nicely for me @semiotix. No more Fonzie-style “Ayyy” when and if Appalachia or Appalachian comes up in conversation again, which probably not surprisingly it does very seldomly in New England.
The westernmost part of Virginia is to the west of the westernmost part of West Virginia.
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That piece by Copeland is an American treasure.
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Nah, Country Club made those little fist-sized lunch box rolls. The huge, dinner sized rolls are where i go when i think pepperoni rolls, with sauce and peppers. Even learned how to make those peppers myself so I could make pretty decent imitations at home. Sorry to hear about Yann, but glad the story continues. Ate many, many of those things back in the day!
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Fun Fact: the song was written about Clopper Rd in Montgomery County Maryland; just out Washington DC.
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The building he’s standing in front of is the Tamarack artisan market - I got into my hobby of cigar-box guitar building after visiting Tamarack and seeing a canjo, a one-string fretted beer-can “guitar”, for the first time. I’ve spent a lot of time, money, and effort because of what I discovered there.
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East is east and west is west and never the twai they meet in Virginia?
Considering that the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah River are not (or only very slightly) in WV, I always questioned John’s geographic knowledge, but it’s still the accepted anthem for the state.
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This was my assumption, considering that the words West Virginia are repeated all throughout the song. 
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Listen to that daily, and life will be merry.
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Inspired while riding along, apparently, not about. (It’s a nice area still, several state and regional parks with pleasant trails.)
And, to be fair, I could see taking it on the way to WV if you wanted to avoid 270 for some reason.
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as a Nevadan, i totally get the opprobrium if the regional preference is pronounced incorrectly. have some respect for the local preference, y’all.
Growing up in the state around the peak of his popularity, I can assure you that many people considered it the state song. He wasn’t singing about western Virginia after all. I very much do remember being rankled when someone would ask oh how far is that from Richmond when being told about my hometown. (“A whole state and Civil War away” was the smart-ass response.)
A hard working and proud people, though sadly we can add riddled with opiate addictions, a failing coal industry, and a transphobic governor to the list lately. I tried to flatten out my accent when I moved away – too many jokes about Deliverance when I trotted out the long vowels and clipped the trailing “ing” in favor of “in” on words like swimmin and fishin and overthrowin the patriarchy.
I’ve since let “y’all” slip back in, as an inclusive collective, and I even draw it out slow like it was meant to be said. Y’allll. And at least where I grew up, nowhere near Richmond, VA, it was “appa-LAY-chin” but we wouldn’t come to blows over it.
John Denver though? I’ve heard him warble that tune enough for a lifetime, y’all.
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Well if I ever find myself passing through there I’ll just call them “the mountains” and make my life easier.
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- Don’t ask when coal is coming back.
- Don’t laugh when a woman mentions that her maiden name is the same as her married name.
- Don’t stand closer to anyone than baccy-juice-spittin’ distance.
- Don’t ask anyone what high school they went to.
I find it interesting that of all the things that could make a song hated, in this case it’s a simple issue of geography.
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Thanks for identifying the building. It looks so mid-century modern, but apparently was designed and built in the early 1990s.
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Separate from anything else in this discussion, this is a fine point.
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