Every summer after school was out my Grandma Gregory and I (accompanied by Grandpa Gregory before he died) were driven down to Mason, West Virginia by my Dad. Along the long winding route 33 I would get oral lessons about Ohio history and geography as well as family history. On each trip I heard some version of the stories and lessons were repeated. The drive to me seemed to last forever and we had to pack as if we would be gone forever (instead of just a week).
We often stopped for a snack at Yankee Burgers (a rip-off White Castles) in Nelsonville where Grandma and I had once taken the scenic train (later I would take Perry and Vincent to help relive pleasant memories). At some point we stopped at the boot outlet in Nelsonville and drove by signs for the college at Hocking Hills. The beauty of Ohio geography could be seen.
Around this area and maybe even before we got to the Hocking Hills area Dad would point out the oil pumps we would pass on the sides of route 33 in various fields. We would also pass a train track with a sawmill almost right on the tracks. We even had to stop once at a brick kiln where they make bricks out of natural clay in the surrounding soil and walk around a park beside a canal because I had gotten car sick. I learned about natural resources of Ohio.
Once we got further along into Athens county the stories really started to pick up. One hill in particular always brought on the explanation of how cars in the old days would have to speed up to make it to the top of the hill because it was so steep. Dad would laugh retelling stories of Grandpa doing this drive and speeding up and Grandma telling him to slow down. We would pass Ohio University (where Perry and I later would explore and find the best bagel place in the world) before slowing down to go up another hill. This hill slowly wraps around a hill leading out of Athens and into the little town of Darwin. Dad always retold the story of putting chains on the tires and driving up this hill in the snow to buy my Mom's engagement ring. Yep, family history lesson 101.
We would wind our way through the hills passing cows munching on grass, steep drop-offs on the sides of the roads, houses perched precariously on the hills, the now two lane route 33 completely canopied by trees, and if we were in the right season dogwoods blooming everywhere. As we drove down the last hill (Dad exclaiming to look out the back window so we could see just how steep the hill was) we would get a panoramic view of the Ohio River and Grandma would explain we were entering Pomeroy, Ohio, "A mile wide and as far back as you could see." Which really isn't very far since it seems to be clinging to the cliffs above the Ohio.
Eventually to the left you could see the bridge and then Grandma would recount the story of a similar bridge from Ohio to Point Pleasant, West Virginia. That famous bridge was the Silver Bridge. Grandma would tell the story of one winter night in the 1960s when the bridge was full of traffic the bridge for some unknown reason collapsed taking all the cars into the frozen Ohio river. Grandma would tell how she had been on that bridge many times before that and the bridge always looked OK, but that night people lost their lives. The Silver bridge was eventually replaced but the story of the Silver bridge stuck with Grandma and now as we would be crossing this different bridge just several miles upstream she would retell the story. It really made me pay attention to the crossing (sometimes fearing if the bridge fell we might fall on a barge floating underneath). Ohio river history lesson brought to life.
Imagine my surprise when years later while living in Tallahassee, a movie came out that was about the Silver Bridge collapse. I saw the preview in the Tallahassee Mall movie theater and was brought back to the drive to the Ohio river along route 33 and all the stories I had heard. It wasn't just a personal drive anymore -- Hollywood had learned about my small area of the world. Richard Gere was even going to be in it! A story about my little Point Pleasant where Uncle Boyd and Aunt Garnet lived. (Bridge above is a railway bridge in Point Pleasant just around the corner from the replacement of the Silver bridge.)
The Mothman Propecies was the story of how strange sightings of a large bird-shaped man or moth-shaped man had plagued the area around an abandoned dynamite factory in Point Pleasant for a year before the Silver bridge collapsed. Legends of this type of apparition in different cultures tell of it as an omen or predictor of some type of disaster. In the movie this "mothman" predicted several accidents that preceded the bridge collapse but was never seen again after the collapse. My cousin Sarah, who lives in Mason (just upriver) tells that they abandoned dynamite factory was a hangout for teenage couples. She swears the apparitions were really large sand cranes (the name of the road a lot of the sightings happened on is Sand Crane road.) But she was excited about having Hollywood come and make a movie in Point Pleasant, but more for economic reasons.
When Perry and I went to the Schwarz family reunion in Point Pleasant this summer, we managed to get away for just a small amount of time to go to the Ohio river front area. There we were able to go to the new Mothman Museum and see public art. There was a huge metal sculpture (12 feet) of what one artist thought the mothman must have looked like. In the picture below there also seems to be a mothwoman whose lost her wings.
Here is mothman without his mothwoman. There was a sign near the sculpture explaining that there is now an annual mothman festival. It not only memorializes the Silver bridge collapse but people from around the world (according to the sign) come to look for more signs of the very existence of a paranormal/otherwordly phenomena that predicts disasters. Stories in the Mothman Museum tell of "men in black" coming to Point Pleasant and interviewing people around the time of the bridge disaster. Supposedly those men were from the government and might have been hiding something.
In the museum Perry and I were able to look at old newspaper articles describing the sightings of the mothman. Many of the articles were from before the bridge collapsed and postulated that maybe it was a deformed bird from all the chemicals at the abandoned dynamite factory or as it was called in the area TNT. They also had some other artist representations of what the mothman might have looked like along with recorded interviews of those in the area that reportedly saw this figure. Even some of the TV shows that I've watched at various times on Discovery and Travel Channnels that focused on the mothman figure were playing on different monitors around the room.
The museum also had some of the Hollywood props used during the making of the film. Even though some of the movie was filmed in Pennsylvania instead of Point Pleasant the museum still had Laura Linney's police uniform from the movie (below). They also had one of the telephones used in the movie (you'll have to see the movie to know why this is important). While we were in the museum we called Vincent (who has seen the movie) at his Dad's house. We asked him what he wanted from the gift shop and ended up getting him a Mothman t-shirt...in black of course.
Lots of depictions of the mothman were in the museum. Some were more recent than others. At the museum we were directed by an employee to check out a shop across the street that had mothman paraphernalia and also Chief Cornstalk paraphernalia (that will have to be another blog entry). So after taking one last look around at all the mothman exhibits (we were on a tight schedule to get to Columbus for our flight to Vegas) we headed over to the other shop.
As we crossed the street we saw our own personal mothman! It wasn't nearly as tall as some of the other exhibits made it out to be but it had a striking resemblance to someone we know.
The shop keeper came out and explained that if you took a picture of this creature with your flash on the lights really did seem to glow. I'm not sure about the glowing eyes but if this creature was going to be on a plane with me to Vegas I was a little scared.
The shop keeper took us inside where he had a cute little Chihuahua walking around the store. He had everything from baseball caps, postcards, posters, and t-shirts about both the mothman and Chief Cornstalk. We started asking questions about some of the artwork (which was different from the museums) and he explained that some of the artwork was based on more recent sightings. He and his son and his son's girlfriend had gone out to the old TNT area. They took digital cameras and took lots of pictures. When they viewed the film there were lots of orbs and strange shadows. When he got home and enlarged some of the orbs he found figures of the mothman inside of them. In his orbs the mothman has a slightly wolf like face. He says his son's girlfriend won't go out to the sigh with them anymore after seeing the pictures. I'm not sure if I would have either. He got out copies of his pictures since we seemed interested. They were a little dog eared but we could definitely see there was something off in the pictures (see below).
Point Pleasant in my mind has now changed. It is no longer a sleepy little West Virginia town where my family has roots. It now has a commercial Hollywood exploitation feel. Perry and I drove from Point Pleasant to Columbus to catch our flight. Now my memories of route 33 and then the following drive from Mason to Point Pleasant have been changed. Route 33 has been straightened and makes the drive from Mason, West Virginia to Columbus, Ohio only an hour and a half long. No more winding roads, no more drives through Darwin, it even has a bi-pass around Lancaster. We made it in time for our flight...but then a whole other adventure started.
---- Stephanie
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