More for the Hardscrabble Reading List

Virginia coal country in the 1940s was also "hardscrabble," according to this book review for "Wish You Well."

Thanks to Lisa for sending that to me. In the process of finding this on Amazon, I also discovered "The Hardscrabble Chronicles,"
as well as Hardscrabble Books ("fiction of New England") by the University Press of New England.

New England, VA, WV, and Matinicus, Maine (and so many other locales I've lost track of) -- united in hardscrabbleness!

Mississippi, we thank you once again

And not just Mississippi -- we can also thank Louisiana and Alabama for doing even worse than us. This time the cheery news for the Mountain State comes from the 2005 Kids Count Data Book. It is our worst ranking ever -- 47th. According to this Gazette article, one in four West Virginia children live in poverty, a statistic that hasn't changed since 1990.

Maintaining (Dis)Order in the Court

See, it's this kind of drama that makes me occasionally entertain ideas of becoming a court reporter. My favorite section of this three-page article is near the bottom of page two when one attorney states that the other is lying because he had called her "a chicken sh*t," not "sh*t head" as she had claimed.

Canine-Human Misunderstandings

What I said: "Milwaukee."
What the dog asleep in the next room heard: "WALKIE!"

So, even though it was 90-something, humid, and utterly disgusting, I just had to take him for a quick walk. I mean, how can you resist the cuteness of an animal starting to prance and yip enthusiastically after you've uttered the word "Milwaukee" in normal conversation?

When I was growing up, we had an extremely intelligent dog who knew many words and was very attentive to our conversations. She could detect the utterance of "walk," "go," "car," and "ride" from any corner of the house and even learned that "W - A - L - K" spelled aloud meant "walk." So we had to use other words - "vehicle," "exercise," etc. - when trying to outwit her. Perhaps the most impressive thing she did was knowing what the "shake" command meant, depending on the situation. She understood that most of the time "shake" meant for her to lift her paw and "shake hands," but she also knew that when she was wet, "shake" meant for her to shake and dry off.

Mountaineers are always free -- and often do dumb things with their ATVs

It's been well-documented that West Virginians and ATVs frequently prove to be a fatal combination, so of course, it was bound to happen sooner or later: people are injured while riding ATVs from the funeral for their buddy who died in an ATV accident. This story has, of course, been picked up by numerous newspapers across the country (such as the LA Times).

Sigh.

You know, sometimes we just make it too darn easy for the comedians.



(Hat tip to Jerry and the Brooklyn Hillbilly who e-mailed me this story at almost the same time.)

Mid-Summer Computer Meltdown

First one computer died, and then the other one caught the same terminal illness and also bit the dust. So, I'm computerless. My genealogy files are gone, I fear (note to self - BACK UP FILES, BACK UP FILES, YOU MORON)**. The Southern Hillbilly is building me a new computer, so until that's done, blogging will likely not be happening. Sigh.


**Just a few hours after I wrote the above paragraph, the oldest computer momentarily came back from the dead and I was able to rescue my genealogy data. Hoorah!

My New Travel Pet Peeve

Pack travelers.

That is, people who travel in caravans of over-stuffed vehicles.

Oh, I understand that people travel together -- families go vacationing together, college students make the trek to the beach together in several vehicles, etc. That's fine.

What is not fine is the irrational, erratic, irresponsible, dangerous, stupid driving that sometimes results from this.

While traveling this weekend, I spent about 100 miles trying to extricate myself from the grips of a four-vehicle death trap pack of NY travelers. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those drivers who feels comfortable going 100 mph to outrun danger, so I was stuck for a considerable amount of time. Based on their behavior during that time, I observed that these travelers apparently believed that:

1) if the latter three vehicles lost sight of the first one, that vehicle would disappear off the face of the earth. (These people had cell phones--and were using them--so it's not like there was any real danger of them losing one another in the hardscrabble terrain.)

2) rules regarding safe following distances did not apply to vehicles in their pack.

3) if a gap formed between any of the vehicles in the pack, and some other traveler dared try to merge into the right lane, then it's perfectly acceptable to suddenly speed up and cut that person off. One must maintain the pack. "We're traveling together, damn it! Our pack must not be broken!"

This particular pack had not gotten the memo about Summersville being a speed trap, but, sadly, this occasion was one of only two in my recent memory when there weren't police cars sitting in the median at at least one point.

Good riddance to you, pack travelers.

Prestige

The President will be spending yet another July 4th in the Mountain State . Meanwhile, in Pocahontas County, the Rainbow Family continues to congregate for their gathering. So, we are the Independence Day destination of the leader of the free world and the Rainbow Family. I think there’s a marketing slogan there somewhere…