| By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The Creston auction will be held Saturday, March 3 starting at 6 P. M. at the Creston Community Building. Baring high water and deep snow, neither of which are predicted, Bobby Ray Starcher should have some fine things for the auction and the Creston cooks will have great goodies in the kitchen.
Rev. Juanita Lockhart filled her regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church. She is recovering from hand surgery to fix "trigger finger syndrome". She isn't really the sort of person one would think of as having trigger finger problems and certainly it wasn't from overuse of 357s, 38s, 44s, etc.
The ice ran out of the West Fork and the river as well as smaller streams. Over on Straight Creek the ice cut fence posts off at ground level and made a pile so big that the state road had to fetch over a loader to open the roadway. It had been a while since the local area had an ice run but, of course, weather is cyclical. Back in 1951 plum trees bloomed in Creston on Ground Hog Day and there was a big crop of fruit but, for certain, such was not the case this year. Of course some folks use changes in weather patterns for political gain and the opportunity to hire lots of lackeys to force people to change their ways to influence the weather. In prior times virgins were sacrificed to various deities to change the weather so not much has changed, at least with some folks. Some folks actually stayed up to watch Albert Gore Jr. win an Oscar for his acting in his "global warming" movie.
One local farmer noted that he was glad the cold weather was over because he was having calves and didn't want them to freeze to death. Also there was a problem with cows sliding on the ice and getting hurt or turned upside down in a ditch or ravine.
John Bingman's chariot took out a guardrail end treatment on the dePue straight the other morning. He had worked all night clearing roads of snow and ice and, for certain, after a 12-hour shift one is tired. As one fellow said, "He almost made it home."
Mr. & Mrs. Denver McFarland were attending to business in Spencer.
A group of youths were calling at the C. Glen Arthur residence the other evening.
Roger Godfrey was attending to business in Creston one day last week.
A large crowd of Wirt residents were present at the library in St. Marys Saturday to discuss the closure of the state police barracks in Elizabeth, St. Marys and, apparently, Grantsville. The DPS head honchos from the Mouth of the Elk were there telling everyone that things were wonderful and would only get better. Just the same, some well-spoken local residents caught them up in some of their stories. It was noted that the opinions of ordinary citizens needed to be directed to the Big Boss himself at 558-2000.
In addition to the state police being no longer based in local counties Community Resources is also closing 7 of their 11 offices including, apparently, the Grantsville & Elizabeth facilities. This is in spite of press comments to the contrary by some as the directives and letters show clearly the actual plan.
P. E. Graham was attending to business in Elizabeth.
Rick Mason was out on the Umstead to tow a vehicle. The key got locked inside and he had to wait for someone to fetch a slim jim.
The price of local Penn grade crude oil rose to $56.75 apparently reflecting mid east uncertainty and manipulation by folks like Marc Rich & George Soros and other international manipulators, etc.
The touted Chesapeake Energy royalty relief bill has been introduced by the Little Elf, Sen. McCabe who has prospered by being a senator even though the taxpayers had to shell out $100 million in an interest payment on his development at Stone Wall Jackson Lake, and Sen., Billy Wayne Bailey, best known for his connections to Bob Graham the senior citizen director now enjoying quality time in a federal facility. McCabe is the wheeler-dealer who wants to do away with counties, especially small counties so he & his friends can acquire more political power.
The proposed new law, Senate Bill 731, would change the way royalties are calculated and paid and would also reduce the amount of taxes collected by counties and the state as there would be a "well head price" established for royalties & such and then [and any time thereafter] the gas can be sold to a bona fide buyer. Some years back Pennzoil paid royalties and taxes on 25 cents gas on one side of the hill and then resold it for $2.50 less than a mile away. Back when Cabot was pulling gas meters in Wirt & Calhoun Counties, gas was being purchased for 20 cents in Calhoun County and then sold for $10 into Tennessee Gas Transmission's pipeline. In the recent Chesapeake suit it was determined that the "buyer" was on the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel.
One Pennsylvania based company has sent letters to royalty owners stating that they have been charging for the gas going through the gathering line to the Dominion meter and that they are going to increase this "fee" and are going to install a compressor and charge for that as well. The letter indicated that the royalty owners should "sell out" for a proposed nominal price.
Chesapeake's head honcho Aubrey McClendon has upped the ante in his demands from West Virginia. First he put the regional office on hold and now he has threatened to stop drilling and drop production to a bare minimum. However, the actions of his employees and contractors reflect a far different story as the Roane County record room has been full of folks looking for oil and gas leases for Chesapeake and the same has also been the case in many other counties. Of course if he declines to drill others will pick up the slack with the main problem being that his company has lots of acreage tied up with automatically renewing leases and clauses saying they do not have to drill to protect their lessors from drainage. The famous bard, William Shakespeare said something to the effect that "methinks the lady protesteth too much."
The trappers rendezvous will take place March 2, 3 & 4 at the Recreation Center (the old poor farm) at Glenville. There will also be a muzzle loader shoot and a root & fur auction. For details call 462-7270 or 477-3564.
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