Martha Bassett

Traces of the Past

A few years ago, while rambling around on a Sunday drive, I stumbled upon the town of Rockford. I felt like I’d been transported back a century. I grew up in a place sort of like that, although Mount Nebo, WV, never reached the grandeur of Rockford. But we had a bona fide general store owned by our neighbors, the Kings, where we bought groceries, fertilizer for the garden, and new shoes at the beginning of the school year. The postmaster, Nora, knew everyone and her corner of the store was a bustling hub of news and gossip. Mom would occasionally send me down to pick up a gallon of milk and put it on our tab.

The population of Mount Nebo was under 200 back then. I rode miles on my bike to play with other kids. I always wished I were one of the town kids who ran in packs and had tight social circles. All I had was freedom and long stretches of time to climb rock cliffs, build forts, read books, and follow paths in the woods. I thought we were poor because we didn’t eat food from cans, and my mom didn’t buy junk food.

Most of the socializing happened at church, and it was at Gilgal Methodist that I attended two singing schools led by Aaron Ryder, the last itinerant singing-school teacher in WV. He traveled the state teaching farmers and coalminers how to sing hymns in four-part harmony using shaped note hymnals. Years later in a college class called “The History of American Music Education,” I read that singing schools were a phenomenon of the nineteenth century. Aaron’s wife, Freda, was my piano teacher and she played the old stride style. Instead of teaching me to play the music as it was written, she taught ear training, chord inversions, and improvisation.

Twice per summer, the WV State Gospel Song Convention, just down the road, was teeming with tour buses and campers, backing up traffic for miles on our one lane road. All came out to hear famous family bands and Southern Gospel quartets on an open-air stage with a sound system so loud you could hear it a couple of miles away. Otherwise, everyone knew everyone, and their business. We didn’t lock our cars and homes. My older cousins told me about a fiddler’s convention, in nearby Clifftop. But I wasn’t allowed to go, as it was a hangout for hippies and flatlanders (my dad’s word for non-West Virginians).

Now there are around 1600 people living in Mount Nebo. Houses line the two-lane road that winds through some of the prettiest countryside you’ll ever see. The General Store is boarded up and folks shop at the Walmart in the next town over. The last time I attended the Song Convention there were a few quartets singing along with tracks to a small audience. No bands, no buses, no crowds. At churches, the notes in the hymnals are round, and I hear it’s hard to find a pianist.

Seeing Rockford brought all this to mind. If you were born before 1975 you probably have the same sort of tale to tell. I raised my children in Greensboro, NC, where they did not run free or eat directly from a garden. My generation (Gen-X) is perhaps the last to experience that older analog world. Nostalgia is tricky, and some of the past I’m more than happy to leave behind. But through rose-colored glasses I share the good parts, some of which still exist. Clifftop, for example, has grown into a flourishing music festival, still attracting hippies and flatlanders from all over the world. In fact, music is one place where you can reliably find traces of the past, even in the new stuff which always builds on the old, just like a town.

Choose Well. Choose Northern. Choose Well. Choose Northern.

DR. EDWARD L. SALERNO JOINS NORTHERN REGIONAL HOSPITAL

Edward L. Salerno, MD, FCCP, a nationally recognized, board-certified pulmonologist and critical-care specialist, has joined Northern Regional Hospital to provide medical leadership for the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and all pulmonary programs – including the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program, a planned outpatient Pulmonary Care Clinic, and an expanded Sleep Medicine program. Dr. Salerno’s comprehensive experience includes more than 15 years of pulmonary/critical-care medicine in a variety of clinical settings, including Hartford Hospital, a major teaching hospital in Hartford, Connecticut; and, more recently, Millennium Physicians, an independent physicians’ group in Naples, Florida.

“We are pleased to welcome Dr. Salerno to our medical staff,” said Chris A. Lumsden, FACHE, President and Chief Executive Officer of Northern Regional Hospital, in announcing the appointment. “His extensive knowledge and experience in pulmonary and critical-care medicine will permit us to further enhance and expand our patient-care capabilities in those areas; as well as treat and more efficiently transition respiratorydistressed patients as we, along with all hospitals across the nation, continue to see significant surges in patient volume due to the current COVID pandemic.

Having treated scores of patients with COVID and respiratoryrelated complications from COVID, Dr. Salerno is adamant about the need for people to follow the CDC-recommended guidelines for protecting themselves and others – which include wearing face masks, maintaining social distancing, self-quarantining as appropriate, and getting vaccinated. “We need to work together to confront this pandemic,” he says. “When it comes to the vaccine, I try and educate patients on the science of it – so they understand and trust that it is safe and effective. I have taken it.”

Dr. Salerno’s approach to treating his patients is to follow the “First, do no harm” principle while always maintaining a focus on patient safety. “I always strive to do the right thing by my patient using evidence-based medicine, and to always be honest with them about their options,” he says. “I make sure I treat patients with kindness and that patients feel they can trust me; and that, no matter what, I will have their back.”

Dr. Salerno is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, and Sleep Medicine, and is a Fellow in the American College of Chest Physicians. He also holds membership in several other professional organizations and societies, including the American Thoracic Society and the Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Association. Dr. Salerno has earned many honors and awards (including the Aldo Bellucci Excellence in Teaching Award and the Maxwell O Phelps Award for Scholarship); and he is a contributor to numerous research studies, abstracts and retrospectives, many of which have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals.

Dr. Edward Salerno will serve patients at the Northern Cardiology office located at 708 S. South Street in Mount Airy. For more information about making an appointment with Dr. Salerno, call 336-783-8998. www.choosenorthern.org