By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The first auction of the season will be held Saturday, October 6, starting at 6 P. M. at the Creston Community Building. Bobby Ray should be back with a load of pepperoni and tasty cheese along with all the other things he brings along. Come bring a friend, tell about all the big bucks you've been watching and all the flocks of wild turkeys that are hunting bugs in the fields near your house, the trout you caught up in the mountains, the catfish you caught in the hole up above Grantsville, etc.
William A. Stalnaker, Sr., age 80, of Annamoriah passed away. He was retired from Cabot O & G. He and his wife ran, for many years, a grocery store in Annamoriah in addition to farming. Burial was at Minnora.
Donald L. Miller, age 70, passed away in Fort Lauderdale Florida. He was the son of Romie A. Miller and had been involved in the produce and trucking business.
On October 3 Michael G. Bailey the postal honcho from Clarksburg will close the Creston post office under the determination of "emergency suspension for lack of facility".
A public hearing was called by the postal authorities September 27 on very short notice and over 100 people showed up including all 3 Wirt County commissioners and Calhoun County Commissioner Rick Sampson, the local EDA director, the Calhoun 911 director, the Wirt 911 mapping coordinator and a broad spectrum of Creston residents and friends. The postal representatives were Bailey, a fellow from Bluefield named Sherry and Mike Mace who said he was from Greensboro.
To sum up the meeting one might say that they oozed arrogance and had absolute contempt for rural folks although they had to admit that they were astonished at the crowd. One of the gents said, "Sometimes no one shows up for these hearings and usually we have ten."
Hie Herron reminded Bailey of a telephone call some years back (that Bailey denied being involved with) and then Mr. Herron read the letter that Bailey's underling wrote.
While the 3 postal bigwigs said they were sorry, knew how we all felt and all would be better (actually wonderful) their body language gave them away and they got testy when they were caught up in their own fibs and blaming the Lynch family for the closing.
Their rules require that contracts be renegotiated at least 2 years before the termination date which meant that all their talk was purely to cover their tracks, assuming no one locally could read or knew how contracts were handled elsewhere. At the meeting were computer experts who had searched the postal folks own websites as well as at least one Ph. D. and a lawyer who the fellow named Sherry jumped about "your interpretation of U. S. Code." The last time this writer checked, lawyers were the ones who were supposed to be able to tell what that stuff meant.
Creston Post Master Ida Wager is to be the OIC at Brooksville (Big Bend) and big boxes are to be placed somewhere for the post office box patrons and then in a year the addresses will change. Bailey got owley when asked about where the boxes were to be placed as one landowner had consulted with both his lawyer and his insurance agent, the latter noting that the annual premium for a liability policy for such would run up to $700/annually. Bailey said, "Well, the state owns lots of land."
When asked if they would open bids for a new building they hummed and hawed making it clear that, if it were up to them, Creston wouldn't have anything indicating, perhaps, the closure was revenge for something else. It was noted that they might get to tell all of this to the judge and those who want to pursue such should contact the columnist.
Euell Russell was consulting his podiatrist while Alvie Ferrell consulted his eye doctor. They both dined at the Dairy Queen in Spencer.
Euell & Charles Russell were among those who attended the Republican dinner in Elizabeth and heard Dr. Doug McKinney speak about the upcoming election in West Virginia. With W. Va. rating #50 nationwide in far too many categories, the main theme will be "The economy stupid" relating to a recent book explaining why prosperity stops on the other side of the state line. Folks were there to promote the candidacies of Fred Thompson, Rudy Guliani and Mitt Romney. Logan Lowe and Elizabeth Adams washed the dishes, wiped off the tables and mopped the floor.
While the local area might be considered Fred Thompson country someone put up a Ron Paul sign along Route 5.
Austin Westfall and Euell Russell attended the homecoming game in Elizabeth. Both the game and the parade had pro Hussein and Osama demonstrators meaning, perhaps, that the local area has now arrived on the "big scene". Now that Obama, Her Thighness and the Breck Girl have all made it clear that they are not going to vacate Iraq the anti-war crowd has a dilemma. One of the girls had a sign about 'making love'. Someone said, "Maybe none of the boys will have to do with her because she has a reputation as being a vector of disease." One of the boys with the signs has family connections to Creston and one can rest assured that his ancestors would give him a major "attitude adjustment." The demonstrators were led by an older man.
Some of Creston's more senior residents received cards from the Secretary of State noting that there was a lack of information on their voter cards in the court house. Sen. Donna Boley also received one of the cards. Back when local registrars signed up voters they didn't require information as Moslem terrorists and such were unheard of in this country.
There has been talk locally about the death of the Egyptian gentleman in the park in Ravenswood at the hands of another man and the woman that had been bred by both of them. Some remember her when she worked at a gas station in Silverton.
Officer Corbett, the Wirt firemen and the wrecker were all called to the mouth of Little Creek when others discovered a blue S-10 over the hill near the Little Creek bridge. It was said that the driver of the truck had a load of junk and got caught in the ditch in front of Glen's house. They tried to use a four-wheeler to pull it out and something went wrong and the truck went over the hill. It was towed to Elizabeth.
Someone brought a fine load of veneer logs down off the Boice hill early the other morning.
Orison and J. E. Schrader, Sr. were attending to business in Elizabeth.
Fritzina and Wilbur have a new laser toy while Keith and Matt spent the weekend in New York City.
Chuck Richter was calling on relatives and friends in Creston.
The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude fell $1.25/bbl over the weekend to $76/bbl The high price very likely reflects the discovery by Israel of nuclear materials in Syria, etc.
Good roll bales of hay have been fetching $39.50 although another fellow said some sold for about $45 each.
Rev. Carlos Nutter filled his regular 5th Sunday appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church. It was learned that there will be a charge conference Oct. 7 in Elizabeth.
Gay Park has a Baker's cyst on her knee.
Area residents have been feasting on paw paws and Chinese chestnuts.
Glen dePue, Jr. was visiting area relatives and friends on the occasion of attending his 50th anniversary of graduation from high school in Elizabeth. | 
