West Virginia, whose current tourist motto is "wet and wild," is an offshoot of the Civil War, that part of Virginia that wasn't in sympathy with the Confederates on slavery and which formed itself into a separate state back in the middle of the 19th century.

It has lots of woods and mountains. That's the wild. As a matter of fact, the capital, Charleston, was debating an urban bow and arrow deer season while we were there. The "wet" part of its slogan comes from the fact that West Virginia has a lot of whitewater rafting streams, of course. Otherwise, it has in times past been infamous for Appalachia, a kind of indeterminate area of rural poor from whence hillbillies came.

Appalachia isn't just West Virginia. It also covers other parts of the Appalachian Mountains.

Appalachia is still there, though not so obvious as it once was.

Most houses are either red brick or white painted wooden structures. The state has an excellent interstate highway system, not a lot of traffic by California standards and lots of mountains, woods, streams and valleys.

There isn't much else in West Virginia, except the trees at this time of the year turning to yellow and gold, a beautiful sight to Californians who don't get to see much fall color unless they have liquidamber trees in their backyard or parking strip.

Once West Virginia had coal mines and some steel, but that is mostly gone nowadays. Steel has gone offshore like so much in America and the East's coal these days comes in long trains which originate in Wyoming, not West Virginia.

It also once had famous glass factories, but there are now only a handful left and some of them are closing because of overseas competition.

These days West Virginia depends on tourism.

We went to West Virginia to celebrate the 90th birthday of a cousin, the mother of 12 children, all but two of whom are still alive, and all their many descendants. The party was a big family affair in an old mansion just outside a town of about 2,000 people. Coincidentally, the town was celebrating its 53rd Black Walnut Festival, although like a lot of other things in West Virginia there aren't as many black walnuts around as there used to be.

The town also is notable for its Super Wal-Mart, up on a hill outside of town (like most Wal-Marts.) By design perhaps there is another Wal-Mart only 25 miles away. It's not a Super Wal-Mart, but soon will be.

The difference between Wal-Marts and SuperWal-Marts is that Wal-Marts sell most things, but SuperWal-Marts sell everything. You can get anything from tires to margarine at a SuperWal-Mart. At a plain old Wal-Mart you might not be able to get the margarine.

The arrival of Wal-Mart in the little West Virginia town and in towns all over the rest of the East and South has had the effect Wal-Mart usually brings. Most of the businesses around the town square below Wal-Mart's hilltop have closed. Most of the people who work in the town work for Wal-Mart and most of the people in town also buy most of what they buy from SuperWal-Mart.

That's because there really isn't anywhere else to buy anything and because Wal-Mart's prices are below anyone who has managed to survive this long in face of its competition.

People in the town seem ambivalent about all this.

They like the low prices (made possible mostly by Wal-Mart's huge imports from China and by its practice of demanding lower prices from its suppliers), they like having a stable place to work, but they don't like the lack of choice. But, of course, there's not much they can do about it.

Nor is there much West Virginia seems to be able to do about opportunities for young people. As a result, a lot of West Virginians migrate elsewhere to make their fortunes. But a surprising number also come back after they are ready to retire, some of them from California. The climate, of course, is not the same, but with what one can make selling a home in California, one can buy a nice home and some land in West Virginia. And as many transplanted West Virginians say, "it's home."

That means the pace is slower, the people are friendlier and easygoing and there are seasons.

And one can go urban deer hunting, yet so far only with a bow and arrow. But they're still going to have to buy their bow and arrows from Wal-Mart.