 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The local area continues to endure hot weather with intermittent rain showers. One storm blew down trees blocking both the Blankenship hill on the Ann's Run Road and the Richardsonville Road. The mail carrier had to backtrack back up the West Fork.
Rev. Keith Belt filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church. There will be no services next week inasmuch as the church will be attending a picnic at North Bend State Park, shelter #1. The program there will start t 10:30 A. M.
Local folks are getting ready for the Wirt County Fair which runs from Wednesday through Saturday, August 4 - 7. There are activities for everyone there with some of the highlights being the livestock shows & auction and the mud bog.
Dan & Bonnie Felten, a/k/a Mr. & Mrs. S. Claus of La Crosse Wisconsin were visiting on the Richardsonville road. They toured Fenton Glass, checked out oil wells, dined in Spencer, learned about narrow country roads and driving up the creek. They noted that they now have a greater appreciation for 'rural country living'. They also put on a puppet show for W. Harrison Schenerlein IV and two of his little friends. Mrs. Claus is a ventriloquist and her puppet, a 30" Golden Retriever named Olive, is convinced she is one of Santa's reindeer. In their retirement, Dan & Bonnie dress in red every day and are always recognized for who they are. They also toured the old state mental hospital in Weston as they both worked in mental health as a career.
Denver McFarland is home after having a kidney removed. He is doing well, under the circumstances, and was advised that the nasty stuff had not spread elsewhere.
Butch and Judy Goodnight moved to Parkersburg and "Jiggs" Sidwell moved back to Creston.
There ended up being 15 candidates for the U. S. Senate seat that presently is held by the Goodwin boy (the rising star as they say). One woman noted that the state could save the $5 cost of the special election if Broadway Joe just named himself U. S. Senator for life but it is now understood that he has big presidential plans so when/if he goes to Washington he will be a "team player" there cozying up to all the other liberals. He will likely discover that the Constitution specifically allows abortion on demand paid for with taxpayer dollars and that coal and oil are both dirty and that we should all heat & illuminate with windmills and Chinese made solar panels and use only Chinese made mercury vapour lights.
Timothy J. Considine recently wrote a paper for the American Petroleum Institute on the economic impact of the Marcellus shale in New York, Pennsylvania & West Virginia. He noted, based on drilling to date, the reserves exceed 489 trillion cubic feet which makes the field the second largest in the world only surpassed by the Pars field in Qatar & Iran (Persia).
Speaking of Marcellus wells, Antero announced that they would be drilling a 9,000 lateral in one of their wells in Harrison County.
Some years ago Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family & a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, & letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give." However, the Big Eared One, who along with his czars and advisors obviously think little of Thomas Jefferson who, among other things wiped out the Barbary Pirates (they were Moslem) and wrote the Constitution (a document that the Big Eared One is on record as not holding in high regard). They have decreed that the daily intake of sodium be dropped from 2,300 mg to 1,500 mg. Big brother's plan is to slowly lower the salt content in foods, just like one would only slowing heat the water one planned to use to cook a frog that ended up in a pan on the stove. It is not clear how bacon, salt pork, ham, pickled bean, pickled corn and corned beef are to be made without salt. Perhaps after "the redistribution of wealth" no one will be able to afford to grow hogs, corn & beans or purchase bacon, or other tasty foods.
Speaking of the Barbary Pirates, their modern contemporaries (& descendants) the Libyans have been in the news since the fellow who was serving time in Scotland for blowing up an airplane and killing hundreds of Americans was recently released from prison and sent home because "he was sick and about to die". He returned to a hero's welcome and now is expected to live for decades. Recent investigation into the event found that the Big Eared One approved he action in spite of public pronouncements to the contrary.
Those who have been following Joe O'Ferrell's oilfield operations over in the Rock Run country have been 'learning how to do it differently'. First one gathers up a whole bunch of trucks & equipment, none with any names but with Ohio tags. Now when one has an old oil tank that can't be repaired one takes a track hoe, digs a hole and buries it.
The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude oil fell to $73.25/bbl.
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