Joe Hobbs and Joe Burdette

My grandmother lives on a great big hill;

in my mind it is a mountain, a grand monster of a mountain.

 She and my grandpa have always called it "the hill;" 

their underestimation of its grandness may have something to do with the 

forty plus years they resided there together.

My mountain, their hill -- our family nest.

Their home encompasses everything I feel and know about West Virginia.

That hill celebrates all of the seasons:

gold and yellow in the fall, 

grey and naked in the winter,

full of new life in the spring,

blooming in the summer -- it is symbolic of life itself.

My grandmother lives on a mountain of a metaphor.

The road winds up and all the way down,

with a sharp drop off that could take a flat Oklahoman's breath away.

Once I took Lucia up and down the hill and I kept thinking that I was going to lose the stroller.

 It may have had something to do with my very paranoid post-partum-self,

or it could be just that steep.

My dad grew up on the hill. 

He had a pony and some chickens and various dogs over the years,

 one that I know had the name of Pluto.

Tricksy was the pony; the barn, where Tricksy lived.

The sweet building is no longer there,

 and where it stood, the grass and trees more plentiful now.

It was summer and then fall,

then winter came and then the spring woke again.

Spring is transforming to Summer and my Grandpa is in those budding trees.

Dad used to walk us up to that spot -- the three of us as kids -- and tell us about his pony and his barn, 

the barn that he built with his dad and his grandpa in 1966.

Remnants of the fence were left for many years, I can still see them in my mind.

I have always loved hearing stories of my father's childhood.

The barn was the summer of my dad's life and the start of a big part of him, 

the mountain size part of him that can now build anything and everything.

Hammer and nails, a gift from his Grandpa Joe Burdette.