Gap fans are ready: A ride through Buffalo Country shows true colors

CHURCHVILLE AND BEYOND - It’s a place where you can grab a coffee, eat at the counter and burn a Camel without any dirty looks or how-dare-he stares.

You’re at T-Bone Tooters after all, the kind of place that only Churchville could think up and a Norman Rockwell painting could capture in a nicotine- and caffeine-induced haze.

Here, you get your coffee black and thick, your bacon burnt and your food heaping and hot.

Here, there’s always conversation.

It’s the kind of place where you’ll swivel your head for hours, checking out the trophy bucks, antique lanterns and other country store brick-a-brak nailed to the ceiling and the walls. (“Ahhh ...” reads one sign. “I see the screw up fairy has visited us again.”)

If you can’t figure out what to eat, you can order yourself an “I Don’t Know” for $5.99 (“Don’t know?” the menu asks. “We’ll make up your mind for you.”)

So, you ask, what the heck do you get when you order the “I Don’t Know”? Blonde-haired country girl B.J. Campbell shrugs her shoulders despite hugging an armful of fresh orders.

“They fix it back there,” she says, motioning with her chin toward the kitchen.

Of course, here in the heart of Buffalo Gap country, they also like to talk football.

And, in true Americana cliché fashion, out here where the mountains are taller, the churches are older and the pick-up trucks are American-made, it’s not about the Xs and Os in the playbook, it’s about the Jimmy and Joes listed on the roster.

Or “Them Boys.”

“Did you know them boys came and worked here last year after they won the state championship?” asks Campbell, taking a break from fetching coffee and turning in orders. “They came in and worked here, using the tips they made to buy their rings.”

Campbell, a 1992 graduate of Buffalo Gap High School, walks over to the cash register by the door and pulls out a book, talking as she walks back to the counter.

“Did you see the book?” she asks before displaying a hard-cover, glossy book with a collage of Buffalo Gap football photos on the front.

Were you here for the parade?

Did you see what this enclave at the foot of the Alleghanies did for “Them Boys” last December when they arrived home from Salem after beating Clintwood for the Group A, Division 1 title?

Campbell — not a waitress but, as she puts it, “a peon”— was there.

“They were lined up on both sides of the street,” she says, looking out the window at U.S. 250. “We’ve never seen anything like that. They’ve never won something that big.”

And when it comes to community support for its football program, no place in Augusta County — save the Riverheads district — bleeds its school colors as deep and rich as Western Augusta County.

“Of course we cheer them on,” says Mary Ann Kisamore, owner of Junction Convenience, a small store just a cow-patty toss from the high school. “They’re from our communities.”

Kisamore’s store, which doubles as a gas station and de facto meeting place for students after school, shows off its Bison pride with a large buffalo bolted to the roof. Her husband and “silent partner” in the business, Gary, was a sight to be seen driving his pick-up truck with that buffalo strapped in the back.

“People probably wondering what the heck he was doing,” she says, laughing.

Junction Convenience is a hot spot before and after games, with people rolling in to fill thermoses with coffee for the cold Friday nights and snacks for the early-season rumbles.

It’s also a gateway to a picturesque view of the school’s namesake, the river gap named Buffalo that cuts through the ancient mountain chain. In the fall, it’s a stunning backdrop behind Gap’s always large crowds. On a cold November morning, the trees, brown and tired looking after their red, orange and yellow fall orgy, still provide a contrast to the blue sky.

Go straight and you’re in West Virginia after a few miles. Head north and you roll past the high school on Buffalo Gap Highway and, eventually, run into Churchville. Proud home of many a Bison football player.

“Last year they went undefeated,” says W.T. Fix, whose name should give away that he works in an auto-supply store in Churchville. “This year they did the same. I’m just glad they’re doing as well as they are.”

Yep, that’s “Them Boys” for you.

Walk across the street and grab a seat at the counter at Tooters, order yourself a BLT (with coffee, of course) and who knows who you’ll be sitting next to.

“A guy that follows that team everywhere just left,” says Campbell, finally getting a break from bringing out food.

It’s OK. Joe Armstrong, a 65-year-old camouflage-clad man grabs a seat, pulls the ashtray his way (“Don’t mean to steal your ashtray,” he says) and laughs a good hearty chuckle at a wife joke (“That’s OK,” you reply. “My wife’s already stolen my freedom.”).

His dad, known as Toad (“He even had that name on his mail,” Armstrong says), opened the restaurant in the 1930s. Now he’s a regular.

“In here six times a day,” jokes Campbell

Armstrong enjoys what “Them Boys” are doing up the road.

“They have a strong Quarterback Club, you know, the midget teams,” he says. That’s what equals success.

“The coaches coach from the heart,” says Mitch Acord, who for 32 of his 51 years on Earth has been coaching for the Buffalo Gap Quarterback Club. “And I think that makes the difference.”

Darrell Cobb, who’s been coaching almost as long as Acord, echoes his sentiments.

“It’s the great fans. It’s the great coaches,” he says. “It’s great kids.”

The fan base? Well, that’s just the bonus and shows how deep football runs out here.

“So, you going to the game?” Armstrong asks before taking a sip of his coffee and twisting his cigarette out in the ashtray.

He never waits for an answer. There are other things to talk about.

Until Friday, that is.