COAL GROVE - Saturday was the perfect day for a little skateboarding and Memorial Street in Coal Grove was the perfect place to do it.

The skies were sunny, the temperature not too hot or too cold and the pavement was, well, rather new. Was this important? To Joseph Reynolds and Ryan Stapleton, it was. The 15-year-old and 25-year-old, respectively, the answer is yes.

&#8221It doesn't hurt as much anymore when you fall,“ Stapleton explained. &#8221I used to fall and get bloodied, now

I get a scratch or something. Now that they paved the road, it's awesome.“

One odd plus to living on Memorial Street in Coal Grove is, apparently, the new asphalt. Both Reynolds and Stapleton have lived on the street several years and say they like it.

Further down the street, the Doris Boyd and her grandsons, Derek, 11, Stephen, 13, and Kenny, 9, have their own reasons to like Memorial Street in Coal Grove.

&#8221The back yard is haunted,“ Derek said matter of factly. Never mind the story of the girl ghost on the swing set may have been a figment of big brother's imagination, Derek is convinced of that and a glowing orb in the woods. Not that it scares him, mind you.

As for Grandma, Coal Grove is a great place to live, with or without the ghosts.

&#8221It's a small town. Everyone knows everyone,“ she said. Doris Boyd said she became acquainted with Coal Grove when she has an Ironton Tribune newspaper route in the village in from 1979-1993. She fell in love with its small town charm. The Boyd family moved to Indiana for a while in the late 90s but when daughter Lisa wanted to bring the boys back home to Coal Grove, Grandma followed suit.

&#8221I just about went out of my mind without these boys. And this one,“ she said, pointing to Stephen, &#8221he's on the middle school football team, undefeated in the OVC!“

Another good reason to live in Coal Grove, it seems.

The Dart is a weekly feature in which a reporter throws a dart at a map of Lawrence County and finds a story where it lands.