West Virginia native Gary Mays had his arm blown off at age 5. Waking up in the hospital, he realized what had happened and thought: ‘Well, I can deal with this, I guess.’” He did.
With swastikas in the news, this poignant, ultimately sweet essay comes by way of a West Virginia native who grew up Jewish here and had her own run-ins with swastikas.
West Virginians used to be svelte and lean, not the obesity capital of America. This video from Kate Long’s influential 2012 series, “The Shape We’re In,” for the Charleston Gazette, tells what happened.