Harley E. Warrick (1924-2000) was the last and most prolific walldog, or barn painter, of the Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company of Wheeling, West Virginia. His career started shortly after his return from military service during World War II. Over the span of 55 years, he painted or refreshed the iconic advertising slogan “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco - Treat Yourself to the Best” on thousands of barns across Appalachia and the Midwest. Warrick trained under Maurice “Zim” Zimmerman (1906-1993), a walldog whose career with Bloch Bros. started in the mid-1920s. This poem imagines the camaraderie both men felt during the start of Warrick's career. Although based on some historical facts, it is a work of fiction. 

The Ghost of Harley Warrick Speaks

Well, you never knew me but you know my work, though lots of these barns 
have gone to pot and the roofs have all caved in. 

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Back then we took no issue sleeping side by side, 
me and Zim, on the bed of the Bloch Brothers pickup. We were  

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bound by white lead, sore backs, and the country nights 
that mended wounds we never talked about. Zim snored and I  

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traced letters through the stars with paint-smeared fingers. Breathed in 
pollen, cornfield, foothill, rough river scent.  

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When I finally slept, black and canary yellow edged out 
the War’s fields of olive drab. In dreams I heard Zim’s voice 

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repeating the day’s lessons: How to set up the ladder 
and scaffolding rig. How to halve the number of rafters 

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to find where you paint the “E” in CHEW. 
How to mix lampblack and linseed oil in a bucket and 

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mop it thick on the barnwall. How to keep letter edges 
straight like the way a man ought to carry himself. 

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“They’ll never know our names,” Zim said through his pipe 
one hot Meigs County morning, “but they’ll know a job well done.” 

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On wilder nights, we played cowboy. Danced with girls in Parkersburg,
ran jukeboxes ragged in Pennsylvania coal country. We married our wives and

gunned the pickup down curved roads anyway, struck deer and possums, left our homes lonely for weeks at a time. “Tell your ol’ lady,” Zim said 

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over beers one night, “that between a good job and a woman, 
a good job wins every time.” 

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Hard to say how many barns I painted—thousands, toward the end 
of it all, four hours each, freehand, most of them without Zim, 

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who found himself another apprentice once I’d turned so good 
I could paint letters in every corner of my soul. 

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On restless nights, I still fix myself a peanut butter sandwich for the road 
and visit the barns I’ve known, and admire at how the paint stays on 

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when the ceiling joists have all buckled. How a job well done 
holds sturdy in the dark, how it 

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draws your camera and this wandering walldog together 
like ridge beam and rafter.

WRITTEN BY NICOLE KARCH
Nicole Karch is a poet and educator based in Zanesville, Ohio, who first fell in love with Appalachia as a student at Cornell University. She is currently writing a collection of poems that explores Appalachian Ohio identity and her ancestral ties to the region.