Eat Shit Pitt

The Irish have nothing over a true West Virginian. They can have their green; all I need is my blue and gold and Irish whiskey is fine, but a good old cold 12oz. is really all one needs.
I never go anywhere without a West Virginia t-shirt and during last weeks vacation into the south I packed at least one for each state I was driving through. They are great conversation starters because we all know there are West Virginians everywhere; heaven knows its an unbroken rule to have enough jobs for us to stay in the state we love.
My shirts didn't let me down throughout the week. While others waited hours in line for a luggage cart at our Myrtle Beech resort, I went out to the garage and waited for a West Virginia fan to walk by with one. This guy came up and said he was from War and I replied my Dad's folks are from McDowell County and he said that trumps the little old lady I told could have this cart in the lobby. Hey, I took it. All is fair at check-out time.
But,the best reception was in North Carolina. I was walking through my favorite stop, Trader Joes, in Cary when a gentleman stopped and asked if I was from West Virginia. I said, "West by God Virginia," and he embraced me and said he was glad to see some "kin folk," which only a true blue and gold understands. We chatted for awhile and throughout the store he would stop me and tell me something else he missed from the state having to have left it some 30 years before looking for work. I invited him out to a local bar that evening where many West Virginians would be gathering for some fine live music performed by a Wheeling native.
We did in fact put together a pretty good West Virginia contingency at the bar that evening where there was a good amount of blue and gold showing. At one point this slightly inebriated guy shouts from across the bar, "I can't believe you would come in here with that shirt on," and points to me. Well he's lucky I had just come off four days of a stomach virus and I was sipping water, because had I been drinking at all, those would have been fighting words. Instead I remained calm as he came over and said he was from North Carolina, but his son was attending Pitt and his daughter was at Syracuse and he couldn't stand West Virginia now. I looked him in the eye and all I could think to say was, "Eat shit Pitt." He laughed and went back to his corner. It's a good thing the rest of the Mountaineers in the bar weren't paying attention or it would have been a scene from Saving Private Ryan.
West Virginians are a proud bunch and we should be. It takes a great spirit to overcome the years of verbal abuse that came from the poverty of the early 20th century; much of which still covers the mountains today. But, we defend her through and through. Montani Semper Liberi....Mountaineers are always free...free to give a few punches to anyone who dares to say anything negative, especially a Pitt fan.