 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The Creston area has been receiving rain which is much needed, so long as it doesn't get like down in Tennessee where they received 10" at one time. The locust trees are all covered with tasty blooms. It is said that when the locusts are covered with bloom it will be a good year for corn. The tree frogs (toads) have been singing up a storm indicating their approval of wetter weather. Also Dobsonflies have been out and about.
Earlier in the week M. Jacques Frost came calling again and killed some folks potatoes and even killed in some places the Japanese knotweed, a noxious oriental pest, that was already 3 feet tall.
Reports from turkey hunters are not very spectacular. It seems to be generally agreed that the "wise ones" at the game warden department set the season too late inasmuch as almost all the hens are now setting on eggs.
Jack dePue and associates have been busy spreading lime on the historic dePue farm at Creston. The rain should get the lime in the ground and raise the pH.
Area residents were saddened by the death of Jane Fint McFee age 86 who had been a long time employee of the former Wirt County Bank. She is survived by her husband Jack who, it is said, is not well.
Denzil "Tinky" Hendrickson passed away Sunday after suffering an anuerism. He was the son of Morrison "Shorty" and Hunda Ewing Hendrickson.
Gay Belt is home after a "vacation" in the hospital where it was determined that someone had put her on an improper (for her) blood pressure medicine. She reports that now she has feeling in her fingers & toes [after an extended time of numbness].
Rev. Carlos Nutter filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church and served Holy Communion.
The Creston neighborhood watch crew who picked up litter along W. Va. 5 on Saturday included Carl, Donna Sue & Jeremy Ferrell, Kim, Anthone & Styme Plummer, Cody Douglas, Casey L. Deel, Linda K. & Jerry Poling, Dremika Neal & Alley Oop Westfall. In addition to 12 bags of trash they found someone's deer tag, two full cans of beer, a fancy roach clip & pen type propane lighter.
Doreen Parsons was visiting in Creston and attended the Elizabeth town wide yard sale. R. W. Arthur said he went there too and found a nice power washer like he had always wanted. Helen Nutter found her a new chariot down there too.
Tim Lynch has been having troubles with his washing machine & took it to be fixed.
It was noted that there are now lots of otters in the river. To watch four of them swim upstream abreast is said to be 'impressive'.
Jeff Westfall was calling on Austin Westfall.
It was reported that Jack Nutter is suffering from the gout.
The Wirt road crew has been mowing the grass along W. Va. 5.
Helen Morris was attending to business in Creston.
Garlic mustard, an exotic pest that kills out native plants is spreading along Creston roads. It has white flowers and is now producing seed pods that will spread the pest even more. Also Japanese stiltgrass seedlings have already germinated.
A local resident was shopping at Wally World and presented a computer check to pay for his neighbor's groceries. The clerk thought it was a payroll check but, eventually all was worked out. The flustered clerk allowed as how she might make the Creston news.
The price of local Penn grade crude is again $78/bbl while propane is $1.133/gallon, n-butane $1.453, iso-butane $1.576 & natural gasoline (mountain high test or drip) $1.918/gallon.
Oil certainly has been in the news lately with a well in the Gulf of Mexico pouring 100,000 bbl/day into the briny deep. The finger pointing stage has started now and satellite photos, available to the Big Eared One, make it clear there were serious problems from the get go. Folks with drilling experience cannot comprehend why the blowout preventers didn't work and, if they didn't, why didn't the downhole remote control valves work. There are those who feel that the explosion which happened the day before "earth day" might have had "some help" including, perhaps, from submarines. When the fellow who dined on halal pork in Asheville ordered swat teams to all other offshore rigs, the rumors didn't go away.
Now while U. S. offshore drilling is off the table, the Chinese, Russians & perhaps even the Viet Namese will continue in the gulf drilling and taking what should belong here. However, such must be the plan for now the nation that put men on the moon must hitch rides from the Russians, a third world country, just to get to the space station.
New details have been learned about the seismic in Calhoun County. Geokinetics USA, Inc. from Houston is doing the work for an unnamed company but since Beech is to be prospected it would seem likely that Chesapeake Appalachia and the Norwegian government are the ones having the work done. The state gives the firm a permit to learn the location of the best drill sites and then the landowners have no idea as to the value of their underground resources. Perhaps that is why W. Va. remains at the bottom of the economic prosperity list & out of state outfits prosper (& state politicos retire to Myrtle Beach & other places to hide their 'wealth').
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