Just then I hear a vehicle engine laboring its way up the road. Large snowflakes float lazily in the still air. Moments later, a faded blue pickup truck emerges out of the snowfall, rocking from side to side as if shivering to stay warm. The insides of the windows are fogged up, but I recognize a familiar decal inside the front windshield. It is the famous gold-ringed globe-and-anchor insignia of the United States Marine Corps. I flag the driver to stop. The window rolls down slowly and releases a cloud of stale cigar smoke. Behind it is a little old man, wizened and hunched down like a troll. He stares at me without expression; a stub of a masticated cigar droops from beneath his tobacco-stained moustache. I introduce myself and tell him what I am looking for. He just stares at me. Then I mention his Marine Corps decal and say something about Iwo Jima and Okinawa. When he finally speaks, it takes concerted effort for me to understand much of what he is saying in his mountaineer dialect made worse by labored wheezing and fits of coughing:
That was the beginning of several hours of conversations that I had with Elmer “Gunner” McGruff (a pseudonym). He was the first of dozens of flood survivors whom I visited with along Buffalo Creek during the next seven years. Gunner McGruff was one of the most memorable ones.