Impermanence in WV

Had a surprise on today's drive. After breakfast in Shep'town, I set out to cruise some back roads I first explored a couple of weeks ago. At one point along this curvy little set of roller-coasters during that October drive, I had to slow down for a young boy of 9 or 10 who was playing basketball in the road. As he moseyed off the blacktop, I glanced at what I assumed was his home. There in the midst of farmland sprinkled with nice, somewhat aged, little single-family homes, was a stereotypical West Virginia trailer-cum-shack, complete with junk-strewn front yard. At the edge of the yard, apparently for the kid's entertainment, they'd erected a basketball hoop facing out into the road. Having been the only obstacle to an otherwise smoothly flowing cruise, the boy stayed on my mind for a while that afternoon.

So today I'm flying along the same road and remember that, not sure exactly where, but somewhere, I'm going to need to watch out in case that kid's out in the middle of the road again. Cresting a small rise, I recognize the spot and am taken aback. Not only is there no boy with a basketball, but the trailer/shack is nothing but charred black bits pointing up at a roofless sky, in the middle of all those piles of junk.

And the basketball hoop is still there, on top of its pole along the edge of the road.