36 S-Diddy disses P-county

I think we should explore the wide world of Preston county today. Let me first apologize to you out of staters and out of county-ers. Then again, if you're reading this, you were probably from here at one time or another.

You would think something as simple as trash pick-up would not be an issue for us small-town hicks. Well, it is. A friend brought up the point that she is allowed only 5 bags a week for a family of 5 and her elderly neighbor (alone) is allowed the same. When I had my shop, I was charged a higher "business" rate here in podunk and usually only had 1 bag every 2 weeks. Hmmmm. Let's expand on that: My water and sewage rates were also higher, and to compound that, an individual's rates are wayyyy higher here than they are in Morgantown. Dont give me that crap about production and distribution costs, Morgantown has an exponentially larger system and way more employees. I'm lumping water/sewage/garbage into one here. Is something being mismanaged? Is our water treatment plant and sewage plant that inefficient? We have rate increases on a regular basis here for all services and yet it seems we rarely see any improvement or change in service.

I remember a couple years ago they took bids to replace the court house heating and cooling system. They spent something in the neighborhood of $750,000. Holy FREAK!! I could have built them a new building complete with furnace and central air for less than that. If the contractors bids are this outrageous, would it not have been a good idea to cancel all bids and start over, looking for something more reasonable? While it is a large building (for this county) , ladies and gentlemen---it just aint that big!! Yes, I said aint.

Doing some quick reviewing in my head, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 bars just in the city limits of Kingwood. There are also 3 police forces: City, County and State. How many of you have seen a cop pulling over people coming out of said establishments during Friday night free-for-all? ZERO. ZIP. NADA. They have to be doing something like smashing into a house before they get pulled over. How many of those good citizens do you suppose come out of those establishments without having consumed enough alcohol to kill my dog? HMMMM!!!!!????? or things that make you go hmmmm.... Oh yeah, how many "officers of the law" have direct ties to bars around our "fair" city?....By the way, I'm not forgetting those of you in other towns, it's just ridiculous the ratio of cop-to-bars that we have in K-wood and they all seem to be indisposed when you do call. A couple weeks ago, I reported a teen rolling out from under a person I know's truck (right around the corner from the station) and the lady at 911 asked me to get the liscense #, description etc. No problem. She then said it would be a while before an officer was available. Really? It was literally 200 yards from the station and they couldnt get off their asses at 430 on a saturday morning when I had just driven by the station and seen the cruisers parked outside? I drove around til I found the car full of teens, called them back, told them i was following them down X street and such and they said they would get someone to check on it. When? Next Christmas? Jackasses.

Wow. Gotta calm down....NOT! Recent events at the local version of what is supposed to pass for a high school have led me to believe that I should have became a teacher when I had the chance. Homecoming has been relegated to a "sign up and you're in" thing. A teacher has taken charge of the event and opened it up, taking the "special" part away from what was homecoming. Yes, I know, it was always a popularity contest, but dammit!, it's still tradition. Said teacher's child may not have been voted in if the traditional (what was it--4?) number of students was elected for homecoming, so it was changed to include just about all that signed up. So this year there will be 20 boys and 20 girls during the half time show. There are extenuating circumstances leading up to this change, but I will not get too personal as I do not want to start a full blown war. Suffice it to say that approximately 2 teachers have caused havoc with some age-old institutions and, in this case, I dont think they should have been changed.

Lastly, I would like to know why, if we are separating Church and State, did they have to mess with Halloween? I suppose it is a Pagan Holiday at its root, but to generations of children, it was just a fun time of playing dress up and keeping the dentist in Cuban cigars and Volvos. Those of you around my age: Dont you remember the costumes, the parade and the candy? It didnt matter if your costume was home-made or store-bought, as long as you got the junk. (dont say that now, they might think you want drugs) They walked us around a block or two and parents and passers-by would come out and look at the parade of ghosts, goblins, vampires, witches and miniature Richard Nixons. We had a little party in class and people brought candy, brightly colored cupcakes, sometimes little,cheap made-in-china trinkets. I miss not being politically correct.

We might offend 1 child or parent so we better not do ____. WTF? Where are my civil liberties? Where is my or my child's right to smear grease paint on his face and relax a little in class(its grade school for cryin' out loud). Where's my candy corn, dammit? I am not politically correct sometimes, and now is one of them. If you have, say, 400 students and 2 of them are of a religious(or maybe non-religious)order that forbids them to celebrate whatever, I say make arrangements for them and do not let the other 398 miss out on a precious childhood moment because the school board doesnt want a lawsuit from the ACLU.(or whatever). This country's downward spiral stems partly from such lapses, I think. I seem to remember that children that were not allowed to participate in such functions usually had other arrangements made for them, right? My memory's not THAT bad. I did detest the Valentine's day crap, but fair's fair. I say let's bring back some celebrations. Sometimes parents are lazy at home and break traditions that for generations brought kids some fond memories. I understand that. I would like to see them bring back the paddle too, but upon mention of this, I will probably be drug outside and put in a guillotine.

Punishment is the other side of the coin. We all want our children to listen and behave, but what tools do we have? Detention? Expulsion? Allrighty then. If we cant paddle 'em, let's think up alternative punishments. How about if you do something aggressive(fighting, threating a teacher/student, etc) you have to do "X" weeks of janitorial work. Not pushing brooms, I mean like supervised toilet scrubbing or K.P. What's it going to hurt? Some of these kids are so messed up now, it seems only a matter of time before they wind up in jail doing the same chores or a crack house, so let's try something that might work. I remember kids that didnt mind the paddle, but most of us would much rather learn some respect and temperment than have waffle-marks from a drilled out paddle on your arse. Want to mouth some more? Grab a shovel and go help the maintainance guy dig out a drainage ditch. or shovel gravel into potholes. Still hungry? Here's some rags, a bucket and some cleaning solvent. Go with the janitor and help him scour the crappers and wipe down the walls. Say what you will, we are too relaxed with our treatment of dissent. I know, some of those kids have problems stemming from home, but I've always felt you dont have to be a product of your environment. You can be better than where you come from. Abuse and neglect do happen a lot and those kids need help, but they also need structure and a better kind of discipline. Make them know why they are being punished. Do it and council them as to why they are so angry or destructive. Maybe it was lack of CANDY CORN!!!

Someday we are going to hear a generation of kids say"What is Halloween? Why did they dress up and beg for candy?" or "What is Thanksgiving?" It doesnt have to be a Christian/Jew/Muslim/etc. thing. Halloween used to just be a fun thing and like everything else in this damnable p.c. world(politically correct-duh) I fear it will be just one of many things that are cast down and forgotten. Before I go, I always thought Thanksgiving was the best holiday. Leave the religious part out, go spiritual. Giving thanks for the positive things you have been a part of and received throughout the year. Celebrate what you have and look forward to the bounty of the coming year, living, laughing and loving with family and close friends. And will someone please tell Roz, I really want some candy corn?