Thurmond

Because, see,

years and years and years ago, Bossman Wayne and I and another individual, well, Bossman Wayne and I boarded Amtrak's Cardinal at Thurmond, West Virginia, and we traveled what was supposed to be a 14-hour ride to Chicago that turned into 24.

And I can't remember if we went through Taliban, Indianapolis, but I do remember...

You probably did.

In our studies, we could easily look, whether it would be from your personal reading of history, whether it would've been documentaries that you watched, or times in school you would've heard of cities like Carthage, that Mediterranean once great power that become nothing but a wasteland over time, or Troy, that great place of Greece that was conquered, out of which the legend warrior would be known.

And yet what does it matter if what one day produced warriors, the next day lies in ruin? How about if we come closer to home and we consider even in North America, cities not too far from Indianapolis, Indiana, places like Thurmond, West Virginia, once bustling North American city has become a ghost town where the population has dwindled to near extinction, and what was is no longer what is.

Right.

I grew up, as many have heard, in Southern Illinois.