 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
Rev. Keith Belt filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. Church.
The Belt reunion was held Saturday at the Gay Park residence on Burning Springs Run. Rain and all the younger set had a great time playing in the stream. Others got to visit, eat good food, etc.
Charles Russell was attending to business in Spencer and visiting with Mr. & Mrs. Parris Parsons, Ray Gumm & brother Euell.
Several Wirt residents attended the W. Va. Folk Festival with traditional music at Glenville. The Cottrell family who formerly lived in Creston and who were kinsmen of the late musicians Noah Cottrell & Phoeba Parsons were there as well as Mr. & Mrs. Arden Bailey. Back when Dr. Patrick Gainer started the festival, Dr. Gainer brought Arden's father to the event to perform on his fiddle. One prominent Ritchie County resident noted that since Dr. David O'Dell had taken over the quality of the music and programs had improved.
The State Road Crew & a contractor installed some equipment under the road on the dePue straight which, one would assume would weigh and describe vehicles as they cross the devices & then transmit the data to some office somewhere.
Calhoun County has come up a notch now that there is a stoplight in the county leaving only neighboring Clay & Wirt Counties without a stoplight. A big slip came in the old concrete stretch of road going from Grantsville to Leaf Bank and a light has been installed while piling is being driven. A paving job is in the works for that section of highway.
Nancy Engelke was consulting with her physician.
The state was inspecting the new Annamoriah bridge which has been named by someone after Orders, the contractor who built the original bridge which was removed for some mysterious reason and the current Orders generation built the new one in a curve as directed by some DOH flunky somewhere since he never intended to travel on W. Va. 5.
Japanese beetles and lightening bugs have made their annual appearance. With the continued rain haymaking is on hold but the amphibians, especially the tree 'frogs' [toads] have been having a great time. Bucks are in the velvet, there are lots of fawns and mother hen turkeys with youngsters are a common sight.
The Chinese and the Russians have now apparently hacked all the government computers and danger is obvious but, like in the days of Amos, no one in authority wants to hear the truth &, of course, the Assyrians came and took them into captivity. Apparently our "leaders" and their news/agenda folks would rather talk about boys who want to become girls, white folks who want to be coloured [and visa versa which used to be called "passing"] and local folks thought that nonsense would be restricted to Hollywierd, San Francisco and, on occasion, Spokane. However, such was not to be the case. Jack Griffin, a resident of the lower Richardsonville Road, apparently felt that inside he really wasn't Jack Griffin so he "crossed the road" so he could become a Jack Russell.
Tulip poplars are beautiful trees with pretty flowers that make fine hewed logs and excellent lumber but a pest has caused the leaves on trees in the area to turn brown. Folks hope that the trees recover.
Some report that with all the rain, Irish potatoes have started to blight. Others report that the Colorado potato beetles are thick and the Mexican bean beetles are feasting on cucurbits.
It was learned that Broadway Joe is working with the senile senator McVain to help their buddy the Big Eared One close down Club Gitmo where the Moslem terrorists are kept so that dear leader can turn America's naval base over to the communist Castro brothers and their Russian enablers. At the same time these same fine gentlemen are working on trade deals that will give foreign agencies power over American citizens and we are not allowed to read the bills until after they are passed. Perhaps the peasants wouldn't understand the nuances in the language.
The W. V. U. Extension will hold a meeting on the Big out of state boys forced pooling legislation on July 8 at 6 P. M. at the Doddridge County park off U. S. 50 on Snowbird Road. It should be interesting to see who comes out to promote the giving away of our rights to out of state companies who grease the correct palms.
Since the forced pooling bill was killed in the legislature Antero, the Denver based outfit funded by others, has been taking folks to court to take away their minerals if they do not agree to the outrageous terms offered local residents. At 2:45 P. M. on Wednesday June 24 in the Ritchie County Circuit Court Room one can watch how the Denver boys, the carpet baggers and their 'local' lawyers, the Scalawags, deal with ordinary citizens who only asked for fair lease terms, accountability, etc.
Some folks who own property where Rogersville leasing is going on [at $30/acre for all formations, net after expenses, etc.] asked, "Well likely the bank that owns the other half may not lease under those terms." The leaseman's quick reply was, "Well, we'll just force pool them then!" These fellows make bank & train robbers look like pikers. One can purchase a few legislators, bamboozle a few more and then rob an entire state and it's "all legal".
Royal Dutch Shell announced that they had purchased the site for their proposed ethane cracker in Monaca Pennsylvania. Some firms have made arrangements to export ethane to
Europe where the money and high paying jobs will be making ethylene, polyethylene and all the downstream jobs. At the same time the government men are worried about using biofuels for warplanes & Navy vessels and new rules for all the new classifications of genders and whatever in the military.
Mountaineer Gas, the local gas utility in most local areas, has asked the public service commission for a rate increase of 4.7% with some sort of justification. Locally produced natural gas, after the deduction of "firm transport and the management fee" charged by the "hard up" Rockefeller family businesses fetched under $1/MMBTU (dekatherm). Likely that information didn't make it in the files given to the PSC which is often spoken as the outfit that looks after their clients, the utilities, instead of the citizens. As one said, "Excellent examples of crony capitalism".
Danny J. Menefee, age 65 of Lorain, Ohio, passed away after a long illness. He was the son of Glen & Doris Menefee.
The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude dropped to $58.61/bbl. with drip, condensate or mountain high test fetching $34.61, Marcellus & Utica light $52.61 and medium $58.61/bbl. It was n oted that in Mineral Wells diesel is now selling for less than low test gasoline.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Hur Herald. | 
