Keep it classy, West Virginia

I'm willing to bet their Super Atomic flashlights ran out of battery power and they got stuck in the dark. 4000ft. down :rolleyes:
 
First I heard of it. People to stupid to know why it was abandoned.

I don't get the title of your thread. I mean people do crazy stuff all over and it has nothing to being Classy. In fact I would say that the state of WV coming together to find and rescue those knuckleheads show the true class of WV.
 
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Play stupid games you win stupid prizes.

I really don't have any sympathy ,because they will be back to stealing again when they get out.
 
No way I'd go down into an active deep mine, much less an abandoned one. There's all kinds of things that can go wrong. I'm really surprised they found them alive. My college roommate from the mid-1980s was out fishing on Summersville Lake up there one weekend back when we were in college. When he got back to school on Sunday evening to our apartment, he told me this crazy story about seeing a little whirlpool that kept getting bigger and bigger. He said it slowly started pulling the boat towards the whirlpool. He had a small trolling motor and started it just in time to get the boat away from the whirlpool. There were other people that went fishing with him that day that witnessed this event as well.

He said that the whirlpool got gigantic, big enough to suck in a large boat. Then he said all of the sudden it shot a geyser of water about 100 feet above the lake and then dissipated. He asked me what I thought it was and I had no idea. So I called my Dad and asked him what it could have been. He told me that it was the roof of a mine shaft under the lake collapsing causing the mine to fill up with water. Imagine being down there when that happened.
 
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Cowboy said:
First I heard of it. People to stupid to know why it was abandoned.

I don't get the title of your thread. I mean people do crazy stuff all over and it has nothing to being Classy. In fact I would say that the state of WV coming together to find and rescue those knuckleheads show the true class of WV.
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We found a West Virginian. Keep it classy man.
 
I thought it was classy-- first story out of WV in a while that I remember with no mention of opioid addiction ( though that may have been the motivation for the attempted theft).
 
I've had my share of stolen property and I understand that stupid should hurt. Also, I understand that if you play stupid games then you win stupid prizes. But to go as far as to kill someone for stealing or leave them to die. I just can't fathom that. Maybe that's a conversation I'll have to have with my maker then.

Based off of my experience there are few offenses that should result in DEATH to the offender. Murder and rape being the main ones that come to mind. Theft is not one of them (minus extreme situations/circumstances).
 
Qball said:
No way I'd go down into an active deep mine, much less an abandoned one. There's all kinds of things that can go wrong. I'm really surprised they found them alive. My college roommate from the mid-1980s was out fishing on Summersville Lake up there one weekend back when we were in college. When he got back to school on Sunday evening to our apartment, he told me this crazy story about seeing a little whirlpool that kept getting bigger and bigger. He said it slowly started pulling the boat towards the whirlpool. He had a small trolling motor and started it just in time to get the boat away from the whirlpool. There were other people that went fishing with him that day that witnessed this event as well.

He said that the whirlpool got gigantic, big enough to suck in a large boat. Then he said all of the sudden it shot a geyser of water about 100 feet above the lake and then dissipated. He asked me what I thought it was and I had no idea. So I called my Dad and asked him what it could have been. He told me that it was the roof of a mine shaft under the lake collapsing causing the mine to fill up with water. Imagine being down there when that happened.
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Over on 14 Mountain, the guys riding in were telling everyone that 14 Mine was haunted... they kept seeing eyes all around the first sections..... Turns out a deer had walked right in the shaft and got lost in the dark....

Mines are cool, been around them all my life and have lost a few buddies. All my family are/were coal miners.. in fact, I was the first of my name to not mine coal.... (But I lived on the Good Side.... Virginia!)
 
VA_GENTLEMAN said:
Over on 14 Mountain, the guys riding in were telling everyone that 14 Mine was haunted... they kept seeing eyes all around the first sections..... Turns out a deer had walked right in the shaft and got lost in the dark....

Mines are cool, been around them all my life and have lost a few buddies. All my family are/were coal miners.. in fact, I was the first of my name to not mine coal.... (But I lived on the Good Side.... Virginia!)
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My grandfather was a miner for 40 years, two uncles who didn't stay long, one uncle that retired from the mine. Lots of family but my grandpa never wanted them in the mines.

I remember when the westborro Baptist Church said they were coming to protest during the Sago mine disaster.
Good morning America asked an old fella about them coming and on live tv he said, "Well they are free to come. But they need to remember these are good men down there trying to provide for their families. They also need to remember that these Hollar's are deep and sometimes people don't find their way out of them."
 
Cowboy said:
My grandfather was a miner for 40 years, two uncles who didn't stay long, one uncle that retired from the mine. Lots of family but my grandpa never wanted them in the mines.

I remember when the westborro Baptist Church said they were coming to protest during the Sago mine disaster.
Good morning America asked an old fella about them coming and on live tv he said, "Well they are free to come. But they need to remember these are good men down there trying to provide for their families. They also need to remember that these Hollar's are deep and sometimes people don't find their way out of them."
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I remember that.... there are some deep cold hollars up there... especially in Mingo and Logan counties!
 
VA_GENTLEMAN said:
Over on 14 Mountain, the guys riding in were telling everyone that 14 Mine was haunted... they kept seeing eyes all around the first sections..... Turns out a deer had walked right in the shaft and got lost in the dark....

Mines are cool, been around them all my life and have lost a few buddies. All my family are/were coal miners.. in fact, I was the first of my name to not mine coal.... (But I lived on the Good Side.... Virginia!)
Click to expand...


It's kind of like a fear of heights thing for me. Even though I'm a licensed pilot and have done several static line jumps, I get woozy if I'm up on a ladder or on my roof. I can do it, but I can't do it comfortably. Flying and jumping is different than a "closer to the ground" untethered experience, for me anyway.

Same goes for going below ground or under water. Actually, I'd rather jump blindfolded rather than go deep underground or deep underwater.
 
VA_GENTLEMAN said:
I remember that.... there are some deep cold hollars up there... especially in Mingo and Logan counties!
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Sago was about 45 minutes from where I grew up. The hollar my family grew up in on a road called Brooks run ellamore, WV is in the process of starting one of the first new deep mines in several years.
 
Mingo, Logan, Boone County, and several others. Yeah, in some of those places, you definitely do not want to be a stranger. Lol.
 
I dated a girl from Charleston for a few years incollege. Really liked WVa and can honestly say everyone I met seemed friendly. Also there were great bars up there. The Gold Dome in Charleston is one of the best dive bars in America.
 
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in WV. Yes, the people can be very clannish, but that is no different than lots of western NC and other parts of Appalachia. I can say that I have met some very fine people up there and they would go out of their way to help someone in need.
 
VA_GENTLEMAN said:
Bloody Matewan.... there is some cool stories from that area.... And with the Mine Wars some cool history.
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Very much so... It's interesting to get up close and personal with the territory and history of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Interestingly, I made personal friends with direct descendants of both families, who were also close friends to one another.
 
cubrock said:
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in WV. Yes, the people can be very clannish, but that is no different than lots of western NC and other parts of Appalachia. I can say that I have met some very fine people up there and they would go out of their way to help someone in need.
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Clannish because they are Irish and Scotts who settled in those mountains.

Sent from my SM-J320V using Tapatalk
 
Mirac said:
Damn strait... They put themselves there, intending to steal. They can have a come to Jesus meeting in there and figure out how to get out.

Thieves deserve to be shot in the back.
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Or just plain old shot.... in public.
 
If you wanna see what happens to copper thieves, just youtube search 'copper thief arc flash'
Not for the faint of heart, watching a man get blown up.

We still do have quite a few hollers. I've been to several folks house that was miles off the road and completely off the grid. Dirt road through creeks with trees bouncing off the windshield. No running water no electric no phones no mailbox....mostly sustenance farmers who sell some product to local markets. You'd never know they were back there.
And they definitely speak in their own tongue, mostly an old world accent mix with a sprinkling of words that you can make out. Think boomhauer from King of the Hill. Sometimes it takes a second to understand what they just said.

But they have all been super super nice to me. I present no threat and I'm all smiles. You need to know a couple things if you get back in these places-
-Be slow. Take an extraordinary amount of time for everything whether it's just talking or looking at something they wanna show you.
-If there's a new baby, everything stops until you go look at the baby.
-You are not alone. There are people looking at you from the woods. Once they get comfortable with you they'll come out. They're shy, and mostly just want to look at you, especially the kids.
-Do not ask about stills, not even in joking. If they like you after a-bit they might offer you a nip.
-They all have guns, but have no idea of the new Ruger that just came out. It's good if you can talk shootin' rather than guns. A good hunting story is well received.
-I don't know how they communicate but somehow it works. One place we were trying to yank an old 55 Chevy panel wagon out of the field. Been there since 1988. Couldn't do it with the truck. And right then we hear a chug chug chug and it's Lester the neighbor puttin' up the dirt road on an old tractor. No one went and got him, there's no phones, we saw no 'neighbors' driving back into this place. I have no idea where he came from, but he pulled the chevy out of the field for us.

Most of all, do not refuse anything they offer you. Whether it's food, or a gift, or lookin at the new baby, or taking a nip. And your first thought is to politely refuse because it's plain these folks need everything they possess. If you refuse, it insinuates that the things they consider valuable are not good enough for you, and you have rejected an olive branch from folks who don't normally offer one. Just be gracious.

It's undoubtedly a step into another world. I find it fascinating.

eta; I haven't thought about Lester the Tractor driver in a long time, but I remember a couple things he asked me,
-Why in the world would you want that old car, and
-Have you seen the baby yet?
:D
 
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Friday said:
If you wanna see what happens to copper thieves, just youtube search 'copper thief arc flash'
Not for the faint of heart, watching a man get blown up.

We still do have quite a few hollers. I've been to several folks house that was miles off the road and completely off the grid. Dirt road through creeks with trees bouncing off the windshield. No running water no electric no phones no mailbox....mostly sustenance farmers who sell some product to local markets. You'd never know they were back there.
And they definitely speak in their own tongue, mostly an old world accent mix with a sprinkling of words that you can make out. Think boomhauer from King of the Hill. Sometimes it takes a second to understand what they just said.

But they have all been super super nice to me. I present no threat and I'm all smiles. You need to know a couple things if you get back in these places-
-Be slow. Take an extraordinary amount of time for everything whether it's just talking or looking at something they wanna show you.
-If there's a new baby, everything stops until you go look at the baby.
-You are not alone. There are people looking at you from the woods. Once they get comfortable with you they'll come out. They're shy, and mostly just want to look at you, especially the kids.
-Do not ask about stills, not even in joking. If they like you after a-bit they might offer you a nip.
-They all have guns, but have no idea of the new Ruger that just came out. It's good if you can talk shootin' rather than guns. A good hunting story is well received.
-I don't know how they communicate but somehow it works. One place we were trying to yank an old 55 Chevy panel wagon out of the field. Been there since 1988. Couldn't do it with the truck. And right then we hear a chug chug chug and it's Lester the neighbor puttin' up the dirt road on an old tractor. No one went and got him, there's no phones, we saw no 'neighbors' driving back into this place. I have no idea where he came from, but he pulled the chevy out of the field for us.

Most of all, do not refuse anything they offer you. Whether it's food, or a gift, or lookin at the new baby, or taking a nip. And your first thought is to politely refuse because it's plain these folks need everything they possess. If you refuse, it insinuates that the things they consider valuable are not good enough for you, and you have rejected an olive branch from folks who don't normally offer one. Just be gracious.

It's undoubtedly a step into another world. I find it fascinating.

eta; I haven't thought about Lester the Tractor driver in a long time, but I remember a couple things he asked me,
-Why in the world would you want that old car, and
-Have you seen the baby yet
:D
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^^^^The All You Need to Know when interacting with West Virginia Mountain Folk in West Virginia... Perfect!
 
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