Five generations ago, my great-grandfather, Wilford Clark Emery, moved from Culpeper County, Virginia to West Virginia where he fought in the Civil War. My branch of the Emery’s have been there pretty much ever since.

Leaving West Virginia nine months ago was like a divorce, like a biblical violation requiring atonement. Even though you hold the place that raised you in reverence, you never escape the shadow of choosing to leave.

West Virginia is an island in a sea of mountains we know as Appalachia. The roots of Appalachia know no arbitrary boundaries; they echo only a common way of life.

And so, in moving to Virginia, I knew I only had to seek, find, and continue that way of life. Turns out it was fairly easy to find with a two and three quarter inch twelve gauge shell and a size fourteen parachute adams

Getting settled is about finding the familiar. I cannot recall feeling as at home in the last twenty years. Two lane roads where every truck still waves, bluegrass and old country music on the radio, turkeys in the woods, wild trout in the streams, and horse trails across the ridge tops.

Four generations later, an Emery came home to Old Dominion, and he likes what he has found.