I would like to see Hillary enjoy next Tuesday's win in West Virginia. She is campaigning hard there this week, as is Bill, and it's my understanding that most voters there seem to like her.

One week later is the May 20 primary, in KY and Oregon, I believe. Now that will be an interesting night.

Have you read Hillary's Oregon Compact? She does her homework and shows she cares and knows each state intimately. http://www.hillaryclinton.com/hq/oregon/compact/

Obama's "Oregon plan" was a shameless cut and paste from another state, without any understanding of who Oregon is and what its needs are. Either he thinks the Great Lakes are in Oregon, or his ad campaign in Oregon is taken from the Illinois playbook. Either way, really lame. This is why he is avoiding a debate with Hillary about Northwest concerns at all costs.
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=7450

I see, according to the TPM Election Central campaign calendar, that Bill is going to Williamson, West Virgina. I look at this and remember the summers I spent in Williamson as an adolescent. I had to go there to stay with my step-father's parents. I always hated going down there because I thought it was boring, too far back in the woods and there were not many black families there.

I remember what seemed like the only two black girls who lived down the country road from my grandparents. They talked differently than the people in my small world. They talked about coal mines and hollas (sp?) and many facets of life that were foreign to my experience. I also remember the my grandfather sitting on the porch listening to baseball. I hated baseball but find myself over time to want to know more about it. I remember sitting by the radio and listening to baseball because that was the most exciting thing to do in Williamson, West Virginia; I learned about the sport and the patience it instills. It is today, the only reason I like baseball. It is the reason I have respect for the people of West Virginia. There is something patient about them and their character.

I really didn't know what to expect from the white residents. I hadn't really formed an opinion about white people because I lived mostly with black people. I can't say that I remember the white residents being disrespectful. What I do remember is the couple of times I wanted to go to the store. It was downtown; or more like in town. And downtown was haul down the holla from my grandparents house. They didn't allow us to go downtown but once or twice. I didn't understand but all I remember it was a long walk from their house to getting the junk food I craved.

Overall it was a good experience. It was a good experince because it gave me chance to see for four or five weeks at a time how other people lived. Williamson was so far and foreign from the mostly black and urban neighborhood experience I knew. Going out of that black neighborhood seemed like walking on edge of the world; it was scary because everything, every place and everyone seemed so unfamiliar.

The four or five weeks I spent in Williamson changed what I thought about the South, country living and West Virginia. It took time for me to have respect for the people in West Virginia. I remember the mountains and the extremely curvy two lane roads that go from Charleston to Williamson and back again. I remember having car sickness because of the numerous switchbacks. Those drives seemed like it took for ever. I think it was somewhere between 4 to 8 hours?

As we passed through the countryside, somehow through my car sickness, I always wanted to know what was on the other side of West Virginia's mountains? What I really wanted to know is, if Virgina was anything like West Virginia? It took two nearly three decades to answer this long simmering question. Along with assuaging this little curiosity came other surprises. Little did I know at the time, that my family originates in Virginia. So I went to the Virginia side of the mountains. I went to Charlottesville and Richmond and discovered that I was just much a Virginia as any other Virginia. Little did I know that I had been so close to my family history on other side of West Virginia's mountains. I am so glad that I had that experience.