Chapter 1: A Taxidermied Welcome
Weston, West Virginia—a town where the only thing higher than the Appalachian Mountains was the stack of unpaid parking tickets at the municipal court. It was here, nestled in the heart of Lewis County, that our story begins.
Jeremiah “Possum” Pickens, a man whose nickname stemmed from his uncanny ability to play dead when bill collectors came knocking, stood at the corner of Main Avenue and Second Street. He gazed up at the imposing stone facade of the Weston State Hospital, its clock tower looming over the town like a stern schoolmarm ready to rap knuckles with a ruler.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Possum muttered, scratching his head with a hand that hadn’t seen soap since the Bush administration. “They turned the loony bin into a tourist trap.”
Indeed, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, as it was now known, had become Weston’s claim to fame. Tourists flocked from all over to gawk at the second-largest hand-cut stone masonry building in the world, conveniently forgetting that it was once home to thousands of mentally ill patients. Possum figured that if walls could talk, these would probably need serious therapy.
As he ambled down Main Avenue, Possum nodded to the regulars at Thyme Bistro, the local eatery where the soup of the day was always “Whatever We Found In The Back Of The Fridge.” The restaurant sat across from the Lewis County Courthouse, a stately building that had seen more small-town drama than a season of “Andy Griffith.”
Possum’s destination lay just a few blocks south: the Museum of American Glass. He had a bone to pick with the curator, his childhood nemesis, Gladys “The Hammer” Henderson.
“Gladys!” Possum bellowed as he burst through the museum doors, causing a nearby display of delicate Blenko vases to tremble precariously. “Where in tarnation is my grandpappy’s moonshine jug?”
Gladys emerged from behind a shelf of carnival glass, her eyes narrowing behind spectacles thick enough to start a fire in direct sunlight. “Jeremiah Pickens, you keep your voice down! This is a museum, not a hillbilly hoedown.”
“Don’t you ‘Jeremiah’ me, Gladys,” Possum retorted, wagging a finger that looked like it had seen the business end of a lawnmower. “You promised to put Grandpappy’s jug in the ‘Local Artisans’ exhibit. It’s a piece of Weston history!”
Gladys sniffed disdainfully. “Your grandfather’s moonshine jug is not ‘art,’ Possum. It’s a health code violation with a handle.”
As the two squared off among the fragile displays, a group of tourists huddled by the door, unsure whether to enter or run for the hills. One brave soul, a portly man from Ohio wearing a “I Heart Glass” t-shirt, cleared his throat.
“Excuse me,” he ventured, “but is this part of the exhibit? Some kind of… interactive historical reenactment?”
Possum and Gladys turned to stare at the interlopers, momentarily united in their disdain for out-of-towners.
“Well, I’ll be,” Possum drawled, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Gladys, looks like we got ourselves some paying customers. How’s about we give ’em a real Weston welcome?”
Gladys, ever the opportunist, straightened her cardigan and plastered on a smile that could curdle milk. “Why, of course! Welcome to the Museum of American Glass, where our most precious artifacts come to life!”
The tourists, now thoroughly confused but intrigued, shuffled inside as Possum launched into an impromptu and entirely fabricated tour.
“Now, folks, what you see here is the finest collection of glass west of the Monongahela,” he began, gesturing grandly to a shelf of mason jars. “These here vessels were used by the ancient Westonians to trap and preserve the souls of their enemies.”
Gladys, not to be outdone, chimed in. “And over here, we have a rare example of 19th-century optometry.” She pointed to a particularly ugly vase. “The pioneers would fill these with water and peer through them to spot approaching bears from miles away.”
As the bewildered tourists nodded and snapped photos, Possum steered them towards a back room. “Now, let me show you our pride and joy—the world’s largest collection of glass eyes!”
The Ohio man blanched. “Glass eyes?”
“Oh yes,” Gladys added, warming to the charade. “Weston was once the glass eye capital of the world. Why, half the town was walking around with marbles in their sockets!”
As fate would have it, the back room actually housed the museum’s taxidermy collection—a series of dusty, moth-eaten creatures that looked like they’d met their demise in a particularly vicious game of road kill bingo.
Possum, without missing a beat, swept his arm towards the lifeless menagerie. “Behold! The Glass Eye Hall of Fame!”
The tourists gasped, their eyes wide as saucers—or perhaps, as wide as glass eyes.
“Now, this here raccoon,” Possum continued, pointing to a particularly mangy specimen, “was the town hero. Old ‘Peepers’ McGee, we called him. Lost both his eyes in the Great Marble Explosion of 1932. But did that stop him? No sir! He went on to become the best darn seeing-eye raccoon this side of the Ohio River.”
Gladys, stifling a laugh, added, “And that opossum over there? That’s actually Possum’s great-uncle twice removed. We keep him here as a cautionary tale about the dangers of moonshine and taxidermy.”
The tourists, now fully invested in this outlandish history, oohed and aahed as Possum and Gladys spun increasingly ridiculous tales about each stuffed critter. By the time they circled back to the main exhibit hall, the Ohio man was furiously scribbling notes, muttering something about a bestseller.
As the group finally shuffled out, wallets considerably lighter thanks to the impromptu “special tour fee,” Possum turned to Gladys with a grin.
“Well, Hammer, I reckon we make a pretty good team when we ain’t at each other’s throats.”
Gladys snorted, but there was a hint of amusement in her eyes. “Don’t get used to it, Possum. I still ain’t putting your grandpappy’s jug in my museum.”
“Aw, come on, Gladys,” Possum wheedled. “After that performance? We could make it part of the tour. ‘The Mystical Moonshine Decanter of Weston—Guaranteed to Make You See Glass Eyes!'”
As they bickered good-naturedly, neither noticed the small crowd gathering outside the museum windows. Word had spread quickly through Weston’s grapevine—as fast as gossip at the Hickory House diner on a Sunday morning—that the Museum of American Glass was now home to a troupe of talking taxidermy and magical moonshine jugs.
And so, as the sun began to set behind the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, casting long shadows across Main Avenue, the stage was set for a summer of madcap misadventures that would put Weston, West Virginia, firmly on the map—even if it was a map of America’s most eccentric towns.
Little did Possum and Gladys know, their impromptu performance was just the beginning. The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum might have been retired, but the lunacy in Weston was alive and well, ready to serve up a heaping helping of hilarity with a side of Appalachian charm.