Jake Malley pushed the loaded grocery cart through Boyer's atrium. The place was packed.

Navigating through the wave of coalcrackers who were doing the same thing, he spotted a few faces he thought he might recognize. All these middle-aged folks who no longer used Friday night to unleash the beast within were getting their order, which, in the coal region, means buying groceries.

As he pushed toward the double sliding doors, stopping to wait his turn to exit, Jake looked at the bulletin board. Maybe he would find a cleaning service this way, if such a thing existed around here. Little had changed in the three decades he had been away, but one could be surprised.

Although the young folks were still graduating high school and leaving, the mass exodus that existed when he was a young man had slowed. Coalcrackers were actually coming home to live, to work, even to start businesses in downtown commercial properties that had been vacant, many empty for longer than he had been gone.

The politics of this place had not changed. He was an outsider - a Protestant and a Republican - in this town of mainly Roman Catholic Democrats. His religion, which he had not chosen, and his politics, to which he had adhered to leverage the trust fund, had caused a lot of heartache for him while here growing up. It kept him from marrying the girl of his dreams.

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