I saw in the news this morning that Dick Cheney got in trouble for joking that people in West Virginia are incestuous. 

Ha ha.

If you ask me, his biggest crime was not saying something funnier.  I know that stereotypes are not a great thing, but it does seem like the country has a handful of accepted stereotypes out there:

Tennesseeans are hillbillies who sing about loving their dog more than their wife

Californians are liberal fruitcakes who eat organic granola out of bowls made of hemp

Milwaukeeans regularly skip down factory steps singing “Sclemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated!”

I don’t know if these are fair stereotypes, but they seemed to be ingrained in our national consciousness.  So, although he probably should have known better, I’m tempted to give our VP a pass on this one (the Iraq thing is a different story).  What I’m not tempted to do is give West Virginia a pass.  Let me explain.

I was driving in WV a few years ago and as I passed a large, indeterminate factory I glanced up to see a billboard that displayed a half open door leading into a dark and somehow sinister looking space.  To the right, in large letters was the phrase:

“Closets are for Clothes.”

Now, to be honest, I would have been somewhat surprised to come across such a visible and dramatic endorsement of homosexuality in Washington, DC.  I was shocked to find this emblem of progressivism in what, in my prejudicial ignorance, I had considered a bit of a backwater.  But there it was, a 14 x 48 foot rallying call to West Virginia’s gay population to “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”  That is, until I saw the tag line.

Below that dark closet, with all of its murky secrets, were the words:

“Prevent Child Abuse.”

I’ll give everyone a moment to let that sink in, because if you’re anything like me, it might take you a few minutes for all the pieces to clunk together.

Yes, in West Virginia, apparently, it is a common enough practice to lock your ill mannered children in a closet, that a child abuse organization felt a public service announcement was necessary.

At this point, I’m assuming there are a few people out there looking down their noses at my self righteousness and unfair belittlement of an entire state of child closet locker-uppers.  And I couldn’t agree more.  Even while writing this, I feel bad – somehow guilty to be exposing and, let’s be honest, disparaging, what I’m sure most of the people involved saw as one of the state’s dirty little secrets.

So, I understand concerns about the evenhandedness of this article. Is it really fair to judge an area by one billboard?  Certainly not!

But two billboards on the other hand…..

It was the next day.  I had spent the night in a perfectly fine hotel, eaten at a nice local Mexican restaurant and had not heard a single child clawing at the doors of a locked closet, and believe me, when I got to our hotel room, I checked.

I was heading out that morning and had just barely finished digesting my hotel’s complimentary saran wrapped Danish when I saw it.

I want to pause here to assure you with my most heartfelt pangs of regret, that this is 100% true.

Along the highway, looming over an IHOP was a billboard with a picture of an oven coil, glowing red hot, like the eyes of Satan himself.  Below the picture were the words.  “Stoves are for cooking,” followed by the now familiar tag line: “Prevent child abuse.”

Yes, in addition to locking their children in closets.  West Virginians, with a regularity that warrants public admonition, take their naughty children and press their hands against the burners of the stove.

I had heard of this before, but only in those torture porn memoirs that come out every once in a while and get Oprah all worked up.  I had assumed, apparently wrongly, that these were isolated instances.  Not the kind of thing that you needed to warn several thousand people a day about through the use of a mass media information campaign.

The sad thing is that I truly like West Virginia.  It is a beautiful state, with wonderful people, an awesome state song (thank you John Denver) and a kick ass, perfectly fitting license plate slogan:  “Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia”  (Take that Idaho: “Famous Potatoes” and  Pennsylvania)

I grew up in the mountains of Tennessee and always considered West Virginia to be our sister state in stereotypical misrepresentation.  I knew that Deliverance was an unfair depiction of the Mountain state.  Whitewater rafting is big business there and I’m pretty sure none of the tours come with the “piggy add on package.”  However, I would have to think differently if I passed a billboard that displayed a nice picture of an elderly couple from Florida holding hands and wearing Bernuda shorts next to the words:

“Out of Towners are for Giving Directions to:  Prevent Tourist Abuse.”