first shall become last

first shall become last

fiction
edward w pritchard

In the 1950's as a boy, in my youth Akron, Ohio was powerful full of jobs, opportunity, smoke and pollution. Now the air is clean and the streets are uncrowded; the manufacturing and distribution jobs are gone. Gone back down route 21 to Morgantown, WVA.  Morgantown, the place we looked down our noses at back then. Hillbillies, coal miners and of course our relatives who hadn't came North on 21 to Akron or Canton or Cleveland for Jobs from 1920 to 1950.

Morgantown is booming. A Major University overflowing with students, willing workers, oil and gas deals everywhere, and visitors on extended stay there on business. Morgantown's unemployment rate is below the national average. It's the next Pittsburgh I hear.

First shall become last and last will be first.