 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
Rev. Keith Belt filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church & served Holy Communion. Mary Weaver will bring the message next week.
Dutchman's Breeches, spring beauties and other spring ephemerals are coming into their own as spring marches along. The kittens at the Engelke residence have now learned how to eat chicken bones and are ready to get new homes. In places the roadways are yellow with coltsfoot flowers.
Cliff Essig the bridge engineer announced that Orders & Haynes have a $5.6 million contract to replace the Annamoriah bridge that was built back in the 1950s by the eldler Mr. Orders. It seems that the nitwits in Elizabeth could not see the vision of a statewide road system and since they wanted to punish Creston as revenge for the days, decades earlier, when Creston was more significant than Elizabeth and no Wirt County bridge was to be built [as Creston had the river]. Of course the locks & dams had gone out a decade earlier but why worry about facts. Anyway, Calhoun political boss Po Gunn realized that if a bridge was built to replace the Annamoriah ferry Grantsville would get the business and, indeed such turned out to be the case. It is not clear why the bridge was allowed to deteriorate to the point that it had to be replaced.
Chuckie Exline, it is reported, has started a big logging operation on the former T. R. Boggs place on Ground Hog. Earlier someone had been taking up gas line there.
Punkin, Nikki, Missy, Amy & Gracie were all visiting Mr. & Mrs. Carl Ferrell. They were also attending to business in Spencer. Carl & Donna also were calling on Euell Russell.
Charles Russell was consulting with Dr. Suresh at Minnie Hamilton and received another good report.
Clayton Moore, "Silver" Marks, Richard Greathouse, Florence Bishop, Mr. & Mrs. Cleveland Starcher, Calhoun County Commissioner Bob Weaver & Wirt County Commissioner Robert Lowe & lovely daughter were among those attending to business in Creston. There was a big crowd at the auction and it was noted that Wilma & Bobby Ray Starcher were married 50 years on February 18.
Kenneth Belt recalled that, as a young man, he and some others from his neighborhood (downtown Industry) walked over to Creston to see Tom Boice's daughters who, at the time, lived at the mouth of Little Creek. Later they walked back home and he recalled that they were most of the night on their journey.
David J. Granholm, a postal vice president noted that closing of the Creston post office would save $42,000/year including rent of $100/month. He noted that "no alternative space was available" even though an offer was made to build to suit as well as various other facilities. He also claimed that "cluster box" boxes were available for local residents. While there are boxes "available" the post office isn't allowed to lease them out to would be postal patrons. It is reported that the postal wise ones want to close Rockport & Auburn post offices as they continue to go out of business doing stupid things like buying $1 million homes for high muckety mucks, etc. having bad service in big offices, etc. While the news media has been talking about stopping Saturday mail deliveries it seems they are unaware that mail is delivered to the post offices seven (7) days/week.
Some local residents attended the "Map Modernization Community Coordination & Outreach Meeting" held by FEMA in Elizabeth. According to the speaker the meeting was part of the required steps to the approval of new maps by FEMA as to the location of the "flood plain" as concerns the necessity of purchasing "flood insurance". Flood insurance is a federal government monopoly or, as they say, a single payer insurance plan. Competition in the flood insurance business is not allowed just like the plan is for health insurance. While it was noted that one could object to the new maps, etc. one can only appeal if one hires certified engineers and then the appeal is heard by the agency which is judge, jury and prosecutor. Those who ran the program could not pronounce Little Kanwaha River and apparently were from Philadelphia. Business cards were left by Mari W. Radford of the Dept of Homeland Security and Cleighton Smith of the firm of Dewberry & Davis, LLC in the "City of Brotherly Love". They seem surprised that there was a large crowd when the meeting was "kept very low key" and minimialy advertised. They made it clear that the local county officials would have to "do as told" or else there would be "consequences". Likely a "government shutdown" could be shown to be a good thing for lots of reasons as essential functions, such as the military, would not be impacted.
W. Harrison Schenerlein IV celebrated his fourth birthday Saturday and received some tools to go on adventures including a net to catch bugs, a specimen container and a jacket with pockets to place finds.
A big crowd was on hand at the Blennerhassett Hotel in Parkersburg for the Dept. of Commerce economic development program and acting governor Earl Ray's campaign speech. Dave Warmer talked about all the "tools" available including the very controversial TIF zone such as was used to help the poor people who were building $1 million homes and the casino at the Greenbrier, all at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. The acting governor said that ethane was a "waste product" from natural gas. Ethane is the source compound for etlhylene from which comes polyethylene. There had been talk of an ethane "cracker" in the Ohio River valley since the Marcellus in the area is rich in ethane but a well placed source in the chemical business noted that the next cracker to be built will be on the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. Obviously ethane from West Virginia & Pennsylvania will not be going to Texas. One of the speakers noted that the state had an abundance of fresh water and that the state was promoting businesses that needed copious quantities of water. The fracturing of the Marcellus shale wells has shown that water shortages can happen all too easily leaving the fish, livestock and residents without but, apparently, that is another story.
It has been learned that the Big Eared One has now given over 1100 compliance variances from Obamacare. Most of the exceptions were granted to corporations that "gave generously at the office " and unions that campaigned for the legislation that had to be passed "so we could find out what was in it". AARP is now in a scrape as they promoted Obamacare (contrary to being a non profit allegedly existing to help old folks) and now stand to reap billions under the law.
The average price for March crude at Creston was $97.3952/bbl and the price as of April 1 rose $2.50/bbl to $101.50/bbl. Presently old sold during the month is paid at the monthly average price. The price reflects inflation as caused by the actions of the federal government. The head of Walmart announced that inflation would become very obvious very soon to even those who are not paying attention as food prices are going up. Someone noted that seed potatoes are $36/cwt but, under the new "rules" food and energy do not count in the inflation figures.
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