MEMORIES RETURNED
Al and I love to go out to yard sales.  We sometimes look for VCR tapes. About a year or so ago a guy offered us this whole box full of tapes for $10.00.  We usually just pick out a movie whenever we have an evening that hasn’t anything special to do.  As we began watching this particular VCR, we realized that it looked like some kind of a recording of a family in the 1800’s?  We stopped and looked at the cover and could see that it was done by a photographer and it was in the town of Blairton, WV.  It also had another town listed, the town of Martinsburg, WV. I tried to find info on the internet and finally decided to call the Visitor Center in that area.  Well, nothing came of anything. So I would stick them aside on the shelf. I just could not bring myself to throw them (there were two tapes) into the waste basket.  Every now and then I would come across them and wonder what to do with them.
Then on Oct. 1 we went to Buffalo, NY for a week to visit with Al’s brother. We took the tapes with us and planned to stop in Martinsburg.  We stopped at the Welcome center and asked who to go to. He suggested the Historical Society and told us where it was located. We planned to stop on our way back, but as some of you know we had a car breakdown and with all that, we just continued on home the next day in a rental.
When the car  was ready, we returned to get it and stopped at the Historical Society.

We found the old brick house on the corner of a street. We parked in the lot and as I looked at the house I could see a door on the second floor with a stairway that went up to it, but the railings were all falling down. I didn’t think I wanted to go up them. The front of the store on the street had all the windows boarded up. There was a green door under the stairs so tried the door knob and it opened. There were about five people there in a number of small rooms. I started to explain why we were there and was told to step into another room to talk to a fellow. Well, let me tell you, he was so excited when he saw the tapes we had. He said they already had some and would put these with them. He took them  as if we handed him a million dollars.   He said they were priceless. We asked if the little town of Blairton was still there and he said there wasn’t much there now, just the cemetery, but that there are some decendents around.  We were so glad to hear that those memories finally made it home  where they belonged.

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