Sometimes I think it would be much wiser and saner to simply move into a cave in the woods. Because there is very little wisdom or sanity in this world. Even in Calhoun County WV where the crime rate is so low as to be nearly non-existent but the jails are still full, the ignorance and apathy level is thru the roof. (Is it something in the water?) Oh, but actually, there have been NUMEROUS thefts in the county lately. Huh, wonder why the POLICE are so SECRETIVE about it? Don’t they want people to know so they can be on the alert? Or maybe the police are the ones doing some of the stealing… Rumor has it that there is a cabin along the river where the cops go to divvy up the spoils… (Didn’t think I knew about that, did you boys?)
Welcome to our little piece of almost hell. The smoking ban is now in effect. Soon the remaining bar in Calhoun County will go belly up. They may be able to pull off a cig smoking ban in Charleston or Parkersburg, maybe. For a while. Until the bar owners figure out a way to fight back. But in good old Calhoun? Where the good old boys see their beer bottles in the same light as their male members? Where the spirit of the hills is still alive and well, even if the hills are slowly losing their tops just down the road a piece?
Cigarettes and beer. They go together just like soup and sandwich. I just can’t imagine a bunch of confirmed beer drinkers headed out for a night on the town without their cigarettes. If I were a drinker and a cig smoker, I’d just go to Speedymart for my fix and then head to a buddys house, get pickled and drive home drunk later. Oh yea, but be sure to toss out those empties along the roadside so the public menace-in-a-uniform does not toss you, too, into jail. After all, those empty beer cans lying along side the road will give the poor folks something to do to make a little cigarette money.
So, cigarette smokers, how does it feel to be in the same category as pot smokers? We’re all criminals now. About time someone had to share in the wealth of stupidity.
Now, as to THE ROAD.
The road, which is bad enough that it resembles a creek bed and rattles every “unnecessary” piece of equipment right off your car from driving on it, is, well, still the same as ever. By winter this road should be just about impassible. But somehow, the highway department can still find the time and money to run a brush hog along the roadside, AFTER summer is done and the weeds are dying back, anyhow. So, just like always, they come down the road and I stand there and watch. They all see me standing there. They studiously avoid hogging down the bamboo patch, same as they always did in years past, and wave as they go by.
Yes, I said BAMBOO. The bamboo patch which is annually cut back BY HAND from the roadside so that the poles can be used … The patch that was obviously roped off and taken care of. The patch which houses one of the biggest and most astounding migrations of birds in Calhoun county every year. No problem, right? Wrong.
Two days later, it’s 8:00am. Everyone in the neighborhood is still asleep. Suddenly a LOUD chopping/scraping sound wakes everyone up. The brush hog is back. The bamboo patch is attacked with a vengance. Quickly, before anyone can show up to complain. The highway department takes their half out of the middle so to speak. No warning. 15 foot right of way my ass.
I rush to stop the destruction, but it is too late. Then I am told that they “tried” to get a hold of us first, and it was “bosses orders”. But wait, I was standing right there just two days before. Did no one know how to talk that day? And last year, same thing. I was standing right there. But not one single person let me know of their intentions.
Let me get this straight. Even tho something seems to be just fine for years and no one communicates otherwise, suddenly everything changes, a special trip is made with brush hog and trucks (at extra cost to taxpayers) to do something that could and should have been taken care of by hand by the owners with highway department blessing. And the way it was done was just plain SNEAKY. Ah, but I’m told, (after the fact of course) it’s SO important to do, just in case someone comes thru there and somehow wrecks and the highway dept might get sued??? Give me a break!!!! This road is so bad that everyone who lives on it cringes every time they have to get in their cars and go anywhere, and the highway dept is worried about 5 extra feet of right of way??? But only in front of my house. SURE. Well, I figure the highway department owes a nice piece of change for the ruined bamboo poles, and the length of good rope that it was roped off with, which is now chopped into so many million pieces that I can’t even find the remains. They will get a bill. Destroying the natural habitat of about a half million migrating birds is another matter, which, I suppose, will only be judged by KARMA in the end, because nobody gives a rats ass about a bunch of birds, right? Oh yea, and you might now need to move those twenty-something year old fences too, for the sake of this extremely important 15 foot right of way, or “they might get tangled up in the brush hog…” I’ll remember that this winter when I slide off the road or bury my car in the thing that was supposed to be a ditch before it became part of the creek bed…
But the stupid buck does not stop there. A LARGE group of citizens, all the way from the Virginia border thru PA are trying to bring some sanity to the coal/electric power industry and let them know that we want CLEAN and renewable energy and all the new jobs that would come with that, and not more destruction of the state thru mountaintop removal, more blue haze belching coal plants, or huge high voltage power lines strung thru an area that can’t even get reliable LOCAL electric service, in order to serve out of state cities and keep places like NJ and MD clean and green…
Noble cause right? You would THINK so. But, no matter HOW noble the cause, already flyers informing folks of a public meeting about these issues are being TORN DOWN by the flyer nazis.
In other news, while following up on the Narcotics Anonymous fraud scandal in Roane county in which victims of the court system are ordered to attend Seventh Day Adventist Bible study being sold as a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, it is discovered that the victims just don’t care. Even tho they know it’s wrong, even tho they feel insulted and their time and gas money is being wasted, even tho it’s actual FRAUD being committed by the court system and against everyone’s constitutional rights, even tho the court system could be sued in a class action lawsuit and most likely LOSE. All the victims really care about is sleeping thru it until it’s over and not pissing off the probation officer… Score one for the enemy.
Sometimes one would think that the devil himself has been recruiting in Calhoun County. Because the order of the day is DESTRUCTION. Anything less is unacceptable. Allow the thieves to steal. Allow the corrupt cops to keep on doing their thing. Destroy the local economy, the local landscape, create distrust between the citizens and authorities. Lie, cover up, be secretive. Use and abuse. And most of all DON’T GIVE A DAMN. It’s the new American way.
Calhoun Underground 