Why?

The other day I was nearly bit broadside by a county road truck. The main reason for this was because said state employee was doing 70 mph on a country road. For those of you who don't like English measurements that's 112 kph.
Why was the road truck out there in the first place? Well, the county I live in is divided into 2 parts by the Cumberland river. Half of the county on the south side and half on the north. All, and I mean all or the services are in the south. To get to the north side, you need to spend 1 hour driving through the surrounding counties to get to a bridge. I understand why he was speeding. He was trying to single handedly cover an entire county that was an hours drive from his base. That doesn't justify his reckless driving, but it does explain why it happened.
There must have been a good reason for him to be there. There was. He needed to clear the roads after the snowstorm the night before.

The ice you see is on my windshield. As you can see by all the snow, they needed to get the snow plows out and running or no one would have been able to get anywhere. And yes, this is the road that the truck driver though 70 mph was justified on.

Can't Even Give It Away

I've been contacting local churches to see if they know of any homeless people who would want to live in my house in Albany for free in exchange for maintenance. At least then I wouldn't have the squatters and I might be eligible for a tax write off. Both good things. I got responses, but as soon as they found out the address, they disappeared. I guess being a car bum is preferable to living in that neighborhood.

Strange Rituals

The people of the hills have some strange rituals. Kentucky is one of the only states where people still stop for funerals. If you are driving in Kentucky and see a funeral procession on the other side of the road, you generally pull over and wait for the procession the pass. On a side street or a 2 lane road, this is a quaint custom, however, the people from the hills of Kentucky tend to carry most things to the level of stupid.
The other day, I was driving in to work. My route takes me on a typical interstate. You know the type. 2 lanes separated by a median strip and then another 2 lanes. The average speed is 70mph. Let's make this more interesting and also say it was raining heavily.
That's the set up. Now imagine a funeral procession coming down the opposite side of the freeway. A vehicle in front of me, seeing that the procession was close and knowing not to stop would be rude, hits his brakes and starts to pull off the highway. The truck behind him, seeing the person in front of him stopping and not wanting to be left out of the herd, locks up his brakes. Then they realize where they are, hit the gas, and try to drive around the other vehicle. Meanwhile, I get to experience the hydroplaning lifestyle and wonder what the idiots in front of me are going to do to further block the roadway.
Fortunately. it all worked out well, but seriously, you don't stop for funerals on an interstate. That's just stupid.

Return to Stupid

I went back to my house in Albany the other day to clear some junk out. I had meant to bring a truck load of garbage to the dump, but that was not to be.
Since I don't have a pickup truck, the plan was to rent a U-Haul van to move the old furniture and construction debris, but that was not to be.
I've rented U-Haul vans before. The procedure isn't too complex. That is until you get to the hills. You see the local nobility thinks they should just sit back while everyone else does the work and then gives them money for the privilege. Consequently, I arrived at a deserted group of storage buildings to pick up the truck. The rental company told me to call when I arrived there. Silly me. I thought that meant they lived next door, and when I arrived, they'd come over in 5 or 10 minutes to hand over the vehicle. No such thing. When I called, they told me the key was in the back of the truck. Well, there was only one U-Haul truck so it wasn't too hard to find. Of course it was backed against the wall of a storage unit and the freezing rain the previous night had frozen the door shut. It soon became obvious that the door wasn't going to budge without some serious work. Added to the fact that I would have had to do said work with about 1 foot of free space, it did not seem like a good idea. After a few minutes of telling the rental agent that the door was stuck and receiving the same response of "the keys in the back", I told them to forget it. They then told me that they could come out in 3 days to fix the problem and I could get the truck then. Yeah, right.
So far, typical hillbilly efficiency.
Of course by this time I has attracted the attention of a neighbor's dog, who decided that I didn't belong there.  Now I got to deal with a snapping, frothing at the mouth dog. Fortunately, I've dealt with such types before, so I managed to convince the dog that I was in charge, and we parted amicably with the dog wanting to play. Of course, I wasn't feeling too happy about hillbillies by this time.
Since I was in the area anyway and I had help coming, I figured that I should go to my house and at least put all the garbage in the barn.
As I approached my house, the neighbor from hell pulled into the left hand lane of the road to check his mail. Did he do it because he saw me coming, or was he just clueless? Who knows? Anyway, I came to a stop and waited for him to get his mail and drive on, but he refused to budge, so I had to drive around him. No big deal, but I was batting 1000 with the hillbillies this day. It was really annoying.
The spooky part came after I pulled into my driveway and was taking some tools out of my car. There was a lot of barking and when I looked up, there was the neighbor from hell driving slowly by and checking me out with another neighbor's dogs snapping at his tires.

Here's a picture of said neighbor watching me through binoculars. This happens to be a good day, but I've seen him stand outside and watch like this in the pouring rain for 45 minutes. Why 45 minutes? Because that was when I was done doing what I was doing, and staying there to see how long he'd stand there seemed pointless.
Why not call the law? You're looking at the law. Yes, Clinton County Kentucky made someone with a criminal record a deputy jailer. Not quite the same as a deputy sheriff to be sure, but still spooky in a small town when you have one behaving like this.
I was just lucky that I had someone over to help me move stuff or who knows what stories he would have made up. That's the lesson for today. Never go anywhere in Appalachia without a witness.
Those of you who get to move stuff out of your old house and take it to the dump. Can rent a truck to do so, and have a neighbor who is nice enough to help, count yourselves lucky. In other parts of the country, even throwing out old mattresses can get complicated.

Stupid Republicans

This blog takes us to the entire Commonwealth, not just the hills and hollers.
Recently, Kentucky voted out its Republican governor. Of course, the democrats saw this as a victory for themselves. In actuality, it just proved that the Republicans are so stupid that they can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It's kind of like watching Joe Biden's clone.
Let's explore what Matt Bevin did to lose.
1) He tried to reform the teacher's pension plan. Granted, it needed reforming, but, in the Appalachian part of the state, teaching is one of the main get out of poverty cards. The pay is poor, but against this was a great pension plan and vacation time. At least the teachers can still count on the vacation time.
2) He insulted the rural folk, claiming their schools took too many snow days and they were weak. Sorry Matt. You live in a flat part of Kentucky with road crews. A large part of the state has 20 degree grades leading to hairpin curves where the county road department thinks waiting for spring is the appropriate response to snow. Show some consideration.
3) He went to the counties bordering Ohio and told them he was going to put tolls on the bridges.
4) He put a 6% tax on services. Now Kentuckians have to pay an extra 6% for haircuts and car repairs. Thanks a lot. That really helped the economy.
As you can see, not really a conservative platform.
Why bring this up? Because now another Republican is trying to get a 25% tax passed on vaping products in order to protect the children. Kentucky has an very high smoking rate, so the Republican response is to put a 25% tax on vaping?
There are a lot of stupid Republicans out there.

Thank You Wal Mart

Just when you think you have seen it all and can cope with Appalachia, you get a new surprise. 

I went to remove the tire on my car the other day, but it was a bit more difficult than expected. I eventually removed the lug nuts on my tire, but what you see above is the amount of force required to do so. The last people to touch the tires were Wal Mart about 6 months ago when they changed the tires.  That would be the Wal Mart in Monticello, Kentucky. It's sad. I had this tire wrench for over 30 years. It survived MG's, SUV's, and compact cars. It's been all over the country. It survived the Yukon territory. It survived Alaska. It didn't stand a chance against the hillbillies of Eastern Kentucky. 

How Did It Get This Bad?

How did the hills get this bad? Well, they have a history of corrupt government. They have a history of feudalism. But, so do a lot of other places. Since I arrived in Appalachia, I have seen glimpses of a time that did work. It doesn't now, but I have seen glimpses. So, what went wrong?
I blame the gummint, or government as most people know it. If you look at the average, American, middle-class family, you will see that their birthrate is basically at replacement levels. If you look at the lower classes, you will see a different story. Lower class families in the United States are allowed to have 6 children, and they get more money for each child up to the magic number of 6. The money is not a small amount either. These lower class types get free housing, free utilities, and if you want to get annoyed, go to Wal Mart on the first of the month and watch the middle class people buying hamburger, while the welfare types have their shopping carts filled with steaks and lobster. Of course, having nothing to do, they just hang around all day and engage in petty theft, vandalism, and other acts to annoy the neighbors. Nature or nurture doesn't matter either. These people generally don't go to school and grow up wanting to collect a gummint check like mommy and daddy. This idiocy has been going on for over 3 generations now. Let's take a look at the numbers.
Every group of people will have idiots. People who are unfit to live in society and are just a major drain on it. Kind of like cancer. Usually this number is small, say 10%. Not an ideal condition, but one which can be lived with. Now, let's see what happens when the government gets involved. Since the cancer class is having 6 kids, in generation 1 they go from 10% of the population to 25% of the population. You are going to start seeing problems at this level. By generation 2, they will be 50% of the population. At this point, you are getting a ghetto. In generation 3, where we are now, they make up 75% of the population. No society can survive this. Of course if you own 1000 acres of land, it gives you lots of minions. If you're a politician, you get lots of votes. If you are a government worker or store owner, it lets you launder lots of federal money. If you are middle class, you might as well not even try. You don't have a chance with numbers like this. Fifty years ago, the local nobility needed to reach some agreement with the middle class. The middle class was needed for their survival. Now, they can just count on the federal monies funneled through the welfare crowd. They don't get as much money of course, but they do get total control. The middle class does not stand a chance. 
Of course, it will be even worse when generation 4 comes along, when they will by 90% of the population.