| By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
There will be a flea market, a white elephant sale and a dip and donate dinner Saturday, December 9, starting at 1 P. M. at the Creston Community Building. Table rent will be $10 with all proceeds going toward the Creston Area Neighborhood Watch. For details contact Donna Sue or Tammy McFarland.
The Creston Christmas dinner will be held December 16 at the Community Building. One should bring a covered dish. Donations are needed for children's gifts, etc. For details call Connie at 275-3519 or Rose at 422-6430.
County Commissioners Bob Weaver and Robert Lowe were both attending to business in Creston Saturday evening. Others attending to business in Creston included Alice Cottrell, Flisha Poling, Margaret Rush, Florence Bishop, Angela & Janet Jett, Shelia Marks, Virgil Maze, Casper Shuman, Lewis Jones & Becky Campbell.
Tony Graham who now lives in the Wheeling area was visiting Paul Edward Graham.
Local folks who were in the Big Springs area noted that a large contingent of lawmen from various agencies showed up when the owners of the big mystery tank "that was going from Pennsylvania to Marietta, Ohio" got the road blocked on W.Va. 16. The other tank got stuck under an I-79 underpass near Jane Lew. There remain several unanswered questions on this story.
The SSI checks (blue envelopes) did not arrive at local post offices on the first of the month. Needless to say there was "weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth" but the government goodies did arrive on Saturday.
Don Rhodes was consulting with Charlie Menefee in Burning Springs on Saturday.
Rev. Paul Williams filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church.
The FunChester Group helped Anna Engelke celebrate her birthday at a Nipponese restaurant. She received a gift card, a game & bath & body stuff. She & a friend also went to Atlantic City.
There was a lot of four wheeler activity in Creston Sunday. The previous Sunday evening about 11 P. M. someone shot a powerful deer rifle. Apparently, Bambi had threatened an automobile and the car fought back or maybe the owner of the auto decided to defend his property or whatever.
Some years back Albert Gore Jr. & other elitists who felt that "the peasants" shouldn't be driving around burning up precious fossil fuels when "oxcarts are available" and to curtail consumption they called for the price of gasolene to be raised to $2/gallon to be more like the socialist nations in Europe. Of course, now they have their way and in West Virginia the price is due to go up again as the Big Boss decided that there was a shortage of money in the fund to pay highway contractors, etc. with a little left over for road maintenance, maybe. The 4-½ cent increase will help the good old boys continue the "good work" they have been doing for as long as anyone can remember.
The folks down at the Mouth of the Elk have, apparently, also decided that it would be good for the state, especially for the elderly that gambling be expanded in West Virginia. It was stated that this would "help senior citizens". "This had to be done before Pennsylvania did it" but the same promoter was telling the legislature there that they had to hurry to head off West Virginia. In Wisconsin, which has casinos like those planned for us, two thirds of the social security checks are cashed in the gambling dens. No doubt enough cash is held out to pay for food, utilities, etc and only excess funds are used for the gambling. In a large West Virginia county the chief tax deputy noted that many homes were sold because the owners had significant problems with "substance abuse" and had no money to pay the taxes. No doubt more gambling would help this situation.
Dr. Walter Williams recently listed a number of Thomas Jefferson's quotes, all of which apply both with the new congresscritters in Washington and the fine folks at the Mouth of the Elk. " The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." "Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers its acts are unauthoritative, void and of no force."
The price of local crude oil was $59/bbl over the weekend while the price elsewhere was above $63/bbl
Oklahoma based Chesapeake Energy has new leases out now and their folks say that they no longer allow free gas to the landowners citing some lawsuit in Pennsylvania. Also the lease is a net lease with the land and mineral owners paying severance taxes and, among other things, "reasonable depreciation and amortization expenses relating to such facilities (pipelines, stripping plants, offices, airplanes, yachts), together with Lessee's cost of capita & a reasonable return on its investment in such facilities. When one learned jurist read one phrase he said, "That is a legal art phrase but I do not know what it means." Folks should be very careful and keep in mind that for the deep gas (which is the real goal) that if these same folks would be dealing with some oriental pasha, bey or sheik they would be offering 50% gross royalty up front and the only real discussion would be over the amount of the lease bonus.
Chesapeake also indicated that there will be 60 square miles of three dimensional (3-D) seismic shot along the Flat Fork anticline along the Roane Jackson County line. Presently they are shooting off the charges in the 70,000-acre area that is in the 3-D study in southern Roane County that runs from Walton to Newton. Some of that was done without permission which is like looking into another's bank vault before beginning financial negotiations.
Local game warden Sam Goines got his chariot stuck in the mud and had to have a local resident extricate him from the mud. Another fellow also got his vehicle mired where he had no permission to be although he was telling others his plan to hunt there (again). He had to call someone from out of the area to rescue him.
The local post offices now have fancy $2,000 scanners even though the old ones worked fine. Local folks were told that the company declined to service and maintain the "old" ones. One would think the feds would have the clout to make someone do what they agreed to do.
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