BLOG: Rough road ahead
Desperation and revelation in New Marshfield
By Aaron Yeager, Staff Writer
November 2, 2007 | 12:36 p.m.
The seven-mile stretch from Athens to New Marshfield and back was perhaps the scariest journey of my life. Stranded without food or water, with only my bike and wits about me, I pressed on in search of a can of pop and some semblance of peace.
It didn't start out this way. I had planned on going to a quaint little Appalachian town, eating at the local diner, hitting it off with some froggy-voiced waitress and then heading promptly back. Hell, originally I had wanted to do this all at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday. Thank God I had foresight enough not to completely screw myself over.
So, at 11 a.m. I set off tentatively for New Marshfield, taking the new Route 56, which is basically Union Street extended into infinity.
Along the way, I spotted the first of a long line of roadkill that would pepper my journey. The animal, a deer, lay heaped against the guard rail, a tuft of its fur gently waving on a stick across the way, almost like a flag of defeat. I sat down to rest and began to worry. It had been a long, unforgiving trek thus far, and my mouth felt pretty woolly from lack of fluids.
Alas, however, the turnoff for New Marshfield almost immediately presented itself. Thinking the most brutal part of my journey was over, I pedaled with fresh zest into the secluded town.
Literally half of New Marshfield is comprised of gravestones. It's the first view to meet the eyes of any visitor and perhaps the most appropriate, given the abandoned, ghostly quality of the town in general. My first stop looked to be a godsend: the Main Street Market.
After trying the door to no avail and peeking in the windows of the "community center" next door, which was in sad shape, I sighed heavily and sat down to ponder my position. Just then, however, a truck pulled up.
A portly woman disembarked and brandished the keys to the building. I rejoiced, but only for about .23 seconds.
"No, honey, it's a house now," the woman explained.
"Are there any markets nearby?" I asked.
"No, the nearest is in Athens," she replied, then chuckled. "Well, fuck," I thought.
Now without any hope of finding nourishment, I wandered aimlessly. Turning down a random thoroughfare, I found myself at the town's high school, appropriately named "High School." Again, not a soul was in sight -- and on a Wednesday afternoon, no less.
I began to think I was on the set of the movie "Silent Hill," in which the protagonist explores a town abandoned after a deadly coal fire. In fact, there was a sign posted outside city hall declaring the "fire warning" condition of the moment (today: moderate). Little did I know how spot-on my intuition was. But I will get to that in good time.
Desperate for foodstuffs, I asked for directions to the nearest campground. The man who volunteered them reminded me of the character Early from "Squidbillies," a cartoon on Adult Swim, because of his fast, clonky Appalachian dialect.
Needless to say, I didn't find the campground and ended up seeking out an auto parts store about a mile away from New Marshfield in a winding residential area. After collapsing to rest by the side of the road, I asked a woman who raised wild turkeys whether the store sold food.
"There's a pop machine, that's it," she said. Ah, well. I would have settled for mud at that point, so I struck on, dazed and absently determined.
Nearly to the store, I spotted someone who appeared genuinely charitable and trustworthy. Well, it was more that he waved to me while getting his mail, which, at this point, almost broke my heart. I asked the old man, Art Mace, whether I could have a drink. He gladly assented.
After wolfing down a sandwich and some apples, I asked Art and his wife Rose about their lives. Art told of being born in a one-room log cabin in nearby Mineral, pitching hay with his cousins by hand, as opposed to using the "air-conditioned tractors" of today, and being stationed in the Air Force in 1951 after graduating from High School -- and yes, he meant “High School,” of course.
Most intriguing, however, was the old man's explanation for why New Marshfield is so damn desolate nowadays.
"It had a couple of really good fires," he said. "[Rose's] dad owned a service station there. The building beside it (coincidentally, the Main Street Market) caught fire and burned it down and a local garage."
All of my vexation with that oblivion of a town seemed to dissipate in light of this strange revelation. It was March 21, 1953: according to The Washington Post, "the 300 villagers...formed a bucket brigade and helped volunteer firemen from three surrounding towns save the town from destruction..."
Five buildings were destroyed.
I could not help wondering whether a large portion of that vast expanse of graves was carved out because of the fire. All I know is that it's never been the same since, at least in my superficial estimation.
Though I was a sweaty, beat, frizzy mess, I returned back to "civilization" with a vague sense of accomplishment. I had cracked the mystery of New Marshfield and avoided becoming roadkill myself in the meantime. It just goes to show how far blunt stupidity, i.e., forgetting food and drink, can get you sometimes.
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