The Road to Good Intent

The road to hell--if there is one--might be paved with good intentions, but the road to Good Intent is not paved with hellions.

Good Intent is a tiny hamlet in Washington County. It's known to a few old timers, and obscurantists, and snoops. And since I'm two of the three, of course I've been hoping that I would someday venture out that far just to see what's there.

As recently as last year, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported on the community's decline, which is undeniable. But I like the way the little town sits in a pleasant valley, on the banks of a brook, at the edge of the westernmost quadrant of SGL #245. (Notice the signage in the middle picture.)

State Game Lands #245 was actually my destination, and I came across Good Intent Road by mistake...but I always find that wandering the roads of Washington County is full of serendipity. Although the last time I made SGL #245 my destination, I found it more or less banal, I decided to return there today to see if the berries and apples had ripened. Indeed they had. And I picked about a pound of elderberries before hurrying off to explore the environs.

Due to family issues, Wednesday is going to become my new day off and trekking day. On the one hand it's nice because it's a time when few others head to the woods. On the other hand, unlike Sunday, Wednesday is not hunting-free.

The most uncool part about trekking on Wednesdays is that it gives me less time. From the time I put the younger kid on the school bus to the time I arrive home to greet them both at the school bus's return, it's only three and a half hours. That means that if I want to do a trek that's an hour away, the actual excursion has to be done in an hour and fifteen minutes. And there better not be traffic or car trouble.

Ah, but it's more time than some overly domesticated family / career men in the suburbs get, and I'm grateful for it.

In any case, I mostly wanted to discover Good Intent because I like the name. "Well, you know, we really had the best of intentions for that place. We meant to have a full-service borough there on the banks of Robinson Fork. Yessiree, we had big plans for the town of Good Intent, and that's why we named it that." The third photo is the village itself. Click on the photos to enlarge them. To be fair, there are some mobile homes hidden in the trees to the right and a house immediately to the left of the camera. The Studebaker-garage-place featured in the Post-Gazette article is further down this same road as it makes its way back up the valley and away from the village. Very intriguing place.

Motherland

Where in hell can you go

far from the things that you know

far from the sprawl of concrete

that keeps crawling its way

about 1,000 miles a day?

O, Motherland, cradle me;

close my eyes;

lullaby me to sleep.

Keep me safe;

lie with me;

stay beside me.

Don't go. Don't you go.

O, my five and dime queen,

tell me, what have you seen?

The lust and the avarice,

the bottomless, the cavernous greed?

Is that what you see?

O, Motherland, cradle me;

close my eyes;

lullaby me to sleep.

Keep me safe;

lie with me;

stay beside me.

Don't go. Don't you go.

It's your happiness I want most of all,

and for that I'd do anything at all.

O, mercy me!

Now come on shotgun bride.

What makes me envy your life?

Faceless, nameless, innocent, blameless

and free.

What's that like to be?

O, Motherland, cradle me;

close my eyes;

lullaby me to sleep.

Keep me safe;

lie with me;

stay beside me.

Don't go. Don't you go.

"Motherland," by Natalie Merchant

Wheeling and Lake Erie

A few local railroads still exist, though many have long since been converted to "rail-trails," a favorite outdoor venue of suburban soccer moms and Mr. Moms pushing those two-seated baby strollers.

I was glad to find the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway alive and well on a recent trek in the wilds of Fayette County. In fact, the W & LE is doing so well that they're replacing railroad ties on the line that runs along Jacobs Creek. Just across the tracks you see the long trail that winds up the valley wall into SGL #296.

I don't consider myself a "railroad buff." Too young. Too disinterested in technical things. But I do love the sound of a train on the tracks when I'm trekking through the forest. Some of my fondest childhood memories entail railroad tracks running alongside rivers and streams, the smell of creosote and ragweed. A train track is a powerful symbol of escape.

Of course, now that I've accomplished most of my life's goals and attained almost everything I've ever dreamed, there's nothing left to escape...except the realization that I aimed so damned low. Besides, the W & LE doesn't take a drifter anywhere except Ohio. Ohio and I have a long and sordid history. Where else can you wake up in a dumpster smelling of Amaretto and wearing a neckerchief?

Sorry, Ohio. If you weren't a colony, you're not a state...

The Bridges of Washington County

It used to be a covered bridge. And there's only ever been one reason to cover a bridge: in order to protect the structure from the elements. But Washington County will do whatever it takes to make the gas companies happy, and the Marcellus shale frackers couldn't fit their beastly trucks over the covered bridge, so off came the roof. You can't afford to wax sentimental about "local color" or "regional identity" when Range Resources comes calling.

The result of uncovering the bridge is going to be twofold. First, the structure will rot and collapse because it wasn't built like modern bridges, which don't require roofs. Second, we're one covered bridge the poorer in the Commonwealth. Ah, but these problems aren't yours and mine. We'll allow another generation to sort out the mess.

This is the back way to "put-in" a kayak or canoe at Cross Creek Lake, in Washington County. Going west on PA50, at the village of Woodrow, take a left onto Old Ridge Road and follow it to a sharp leftward turn with a little park road to the right. The park road leads to this once-covered bridge. If you're going paddling, this is so much nicer than the main entrance to the park. It was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, but I had the whole place to myself.

On the far side of the uncovered bridge, the road becomes a clay-dirt track the likes of which I haven't seen since my Africa years. It snakes through forest and uphill. Eventually, the little lane remains under deep canopy as the countryside off to the the left opens up dramatically beneath it. The road feels like a mezzanine in darkness, looking out over a vast auditorium, the ancient farmlands and the woodlots of southern Pennsylvania. It gave me the impression of standing in a high, dark balcony that overlooks a large, bright theater or sanctuary.


The tragedy of this place tears at my heart. The weary old countryside first settled in the last decades of the 18th century has seen so much heartache and bloodshed. It's been a place of accute injustice, where the rich in far-off cities have exploited the local poor shamelessly, and at least in recent years, the poor have been complicit in their own dehumanization. This land has been mined, and strip-mined, and farmed, and drilled, and in all of these ventures, poisoned. And yet, her quiet dignity and forlorn beauty are still her own.

The little road is topped with gravel as it reaches the summit, a broad, flat area. As the road draws near to a loud, heinously ugly fracker station, you'll see threatening signs warning that the place is off limits to all except hardhatted employees of Range Resources.