BY KYLE LOVERN

Every once in a while, a song comes along that touches you inside. A few years ago one of my favorite country music stars, Miranda Lambert, had a huge hit with “The House That Built Me.”

The video shows her visiting the house where she grew up. I can definitely relate to the feelings this song and lyrics express.

However, my old home place at Nolan, W.Va., no longer exists thanks to progress. The 4-lane highway, U. S. 119 (Corridor G), came through a few years back and tore out many homes through that community and others along the right of way. So the place where I grew up no longer exists.

All I have is the memories.

But they are great memories. As I’ve written before, I’m sentimental. I dream of my old house all the time. I guess a place where you spend your early years sort of molds you. I knew of nothing else. Our modest but cozy white, wood-framed house at Nolan sort of wrapped around and hugged us. It was an older house with hardwood floors and higher ceilings.

Just like in the video of Lambert’s song, we had a long front porch complete with a wooden porch swing, metal glider and a couple of more chairs.

We loved sitting on that porch in the spring and summer. I recall stringing green beans with my mom, sister and dad. Neighbors would walk by and always wave and sometimes stop to chat. It was your typical friendly community.

I can remember hearing the frogs croaking in the nearby roadside ditches in March, which meant spring was around the corner.

We had a screen door and put in window screens in the summer to catch a breeze. We had no idea what air conditioning was, let alone central heat and air.

Like in Lambert’s song, I buried one of my favorite dogs under a tree in the backyard after he got out of the yard and was struck by a car.

Of course, I had a basketball goal in our dirt driveway. If I had a quarter for the many hours I spent shooting hoops, both alone and with friends, on that goal, I would be rich.

Growing up, we played in the yard with our neighbors. We caught lightning bugs in the summer and put them in jars to make a flickering lantern, punching holes in the metal lids to give them air.

My mom had a green thumb and planted plenty of flowers in the yard, like purple gladiolus, pink rose bushes and many others. We had flower pots on the porch and some inside the house. She really loved planting and taking care of her flowers.

We had cherry and plum trees in our yard. (What I wouldn’t give to pick a couple of sweet plums right off the tree to eat.) We had a small strawberry patch, grapevines and something called a gooseberry bush. Those berries were sour, but mom would sweeten them to make a pie. She did the same with the cherries as Dad would pick a bucket full off the trees in early summer. Like most mothers, she was a great cook.

Other neighbors had bee hives that produced sweet, local honey. There were apple trees.

Our property conjoined a neighbor’s yard without a fence. I can recall as a really young child watching them kill chickens. My sister and I would watch with amazement as they jerked the heads of the live chickens, and then the chickens would flop around in the grass for a bit – before they fell over. A washtub of boiling water awaited them, so it would be easier to pluck the feathers off the plump birds.

Neighbors shared back then; whatever they had, you had. They would watch out for your family, and it went both ways. Those same neighbors and others always raised hogs. We placed our daily scraps in a bucket hung on a post to help feed those pigs. We would always get a package or two of fresh pork.

The song’s lyrics talk about doing homework in the back bedroom and learning to play the guitar. (Unfortunately, I tried but never got the hang of playing an instrument.)
As the song starts, it says, “I know they say you can’t go home again, I just had to come back one last time,” as she visits her old house in the video.

“If I could walk around, I swear I’ll leave, Won’t take nothin’ but a memory, From the house that built me,” the song concludes.

I would love to be able to step into that beautiful, loving home one more time. But all we have are memories.
Those fond recollections will live with me forever – From the house that built me.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)