I Told You So

According to this report in the Gazette and my personal experiences yesterday, the Patrick Street trash bag distribution point is working out just like I thought it would. I told you this was a bad idea.

The article didn't even mention the truck that took out a fire hydrant while trying to turn around to avoid the traffic congestion (the aftermath of which is shown in this Gazette photo). The water flowed freely down Patrick Street for an hour or so and made an even bigger mess of the proceedings.

Halloween Hooliganism

The Kanawha County sheriff's department is on high alert, beginning tonight, for vandals who want to get an early start on Halloween hijinx. According to a deputy speaking on morning radio news shows they will be paying special attention to places known to have problems in the past, namely Cabin Creek, Campbell's Creek and Witcher Creek.

My wife grew up in an eastern Kanawha County "creek" community (holler) and when we were dating I got my first taste of this culture of silliness. Every year in mid-October the first tell-tale signs of the impending terror would appear as tree limbs were collected from the hillsides and placed strategically beside the road. These limbs would be the instruments of mischief and every night they would systematically be placed across the road to block traffic while the mischief makers hid in the woods and sneered or snickered as grumbling motorists had to get out or their cars to remove the blockade. As soon as the cars passed, the hooligans would run down and block the road for the next car. And so it would go from mid-October until All Hallows Eve when the ante was upped considerably when a full size tree would be cut down and dropped across the road, taking down the power and phone lines as it fell. Every year this all played out exactly the same way.

Residents of the hollow knew they had to get home before dark on Halloween night or they wouldn't get home at all. Once the tree fell there would be not traffic moving up or down the creek until late in night or early the next morning when the power company would come and remove the tree and repair their lines.

Being an outsider I could never understand why the people of the community allowed this to happen year after year. It seemed to me that an ad-hoc neighborhood watch could be posted at the site of the tree-felling (it was in the exact same spot every year) and prevent this from happening. But after several years I found out why the responsible adults didn't intervene: They were part of the hooligan squad. Yes, I found out that it was a family affair, that the reason this had been going on so many years was that it was a tradition that had been passed down from father to son and from mother to daughter. On Halloween there were young and old alike who went to this spot to cut down this tree to block themselves in for the night. Family values, I guess.

I was, and remain to this day, incredulous about the way these people endanger their friends and neighbors by blocking the road and cutting off power to the entire community. If a house where to catch fire or someone in the community would experience a medical emergency it would be impossible for emergency vehicles to reach them. It amazes me further that parents would train their children in the art of road blocking and encourage them to do it.

Go figure.

Country Coming to Town

One of the neatest things about Charleston is how country and city live in close proximity. It's the only city of its size I have seen where you can drive five minutes from downtown and feel like you are deep in the woods.

Consider this peaceful shot of the Elk River. You could imagine that it is shot from some secluded spot miles from civilization, but it is actually about four or five blocks from the center of town.


Here is a shot taken from a vantage point one block away from the above scene:



How cool is that?

The Leaves Changed

Seemingly overnight the leaves around Charleston changed. Here is a picture I took today of a hillside that I have passed virtually every day for the last 20 years. It is without a doubt the most colorful little patch of woods I know of, but it's difficult to photograph due to its location and the powerlines that are in the way. This is just a part of it but there's just no way to get a wider angle without a helicopter.

Secret Shows at The Clay Center

I consider myself to be a fairly heavy consumer of news media. I watch two or three TV news broadcasts every day, read both newspapers (albeit online), listen to the radio when driving and sometimes at the office. With this consumption of airwaves and printers ink comes, necessarily, a lot of exposure to advertising. I feel that I am definitely above average when it comes to knowing what’s going on in my town.

But I am consistently surprised by reviews of Clay Center events in the morning paper. These events happen and are over before I ever hear of them. This morning is a good example. Writes Bob Schwarz in the Gazette:

“Camelot” stopped at the Clay Center on Tuesday, giving the audience a wonderful reminder of how splendid were the songs and how clever the language when the American musical was at its height.

I have a daughter that lives for musicals. Had I had any inkling whatsoever that Camelot was showing last night I would have been there. This has happened perhaps five or six times this year as production after production has quietly stolen in and out of town without fanfare. I am sure that there was some sort of advertising, but it certainly hasn’t made it to my ears or eyes.I can only conclude that the shows are only advertised through South Hills media outlets or to the Clay Center or WV Symphony mailing lists, none of which would come to my attention.

The Clay Center is leaking money like a sieve and claims to be trying to lose its “elitist” identity. Perhaps a solution to both problems is a better advertising strategy.

Impropriety on Display

According to Jim Balow's story in this morning's Gazette :

The Charleston City Council overwhelmingly approved a controversial ward-redistricting plan Monday night, despite objections from two Kanawha City council members.

They did so in front of an audience that included a class from George Washington High School that was studying gerrymandering under teacher Jane Claymore, Ward 19 Councilwoman Ditty Markham said.

This is just the latest example of how our City's top elected official continually ignores the old public service maxim "avoid the appearance of impropriety." It seems that Mayor Jones thrives on just the opposite; he seems to really enjoy showing off his political hardball tactics right out in the open. Even in front of a high school class that wanted to witness a case of gerrymandering case up close and personal.

Mayor Jones has been feuding with two city council members, Ditty Markham and Mark Sadd, since day one in office and he doesn't care who knows it. In Mark Sadd's case he took to the airwaves and print media to loudly shout down Sadd's nomination to the federal bench. Now, according to Markham, Jones has apparently succeeded in hamstringing Markham by essentially eliminating her from eligibility to serve as her now former ward's representative. Whether he in fact had a hand in it or not, he certainly didn't seem interested in slowing down the process to allow time for more discussion or study.

An accusation of gerrymandering used to be a serious matter, but it seems Mayor Jones doesn't care; it just pads his resume.

Economic Development for the West Side

“I think the mayor has been trying to find ways to help the West Side.”

That was Deputy Mayor Rod Blackstone's reasoning for moving the trash bag pickup from the ultra convenient Pennsylvania Avenue site where it has been held for years to the curious location of Patrick Street beside Charleston Department Store. In an article in this morning's Gazette, Blackstone reveals the staggering amount of work that has gone into the administration's strategic decision to infuse the West Side with new economic energy:

Blackstone said. “We’re working with police to close that section of the
street [Patrick Street].” Motorists can approach the block from Washington Street or from the south, he said.

Good grief. Inconvenience 90% of the residents of the city so they will drive down the most depressing street in all of Charleston, all in the name of economic develoment?

The Pennsylvania Avenue location was ideal because it was under the interstate and therefore immune to precipitation, it was geographically in the dead-center of town, it had outstanding access from every direction, it has adequate traffic lanes so there was never a tie-up. It had worked flawlessly for many years.

If it ain't broke...

Blackstone also explains why the city's trash bag distribution is late this fall.

Blackstone blamed the delay on efforts to market city assets, including trash bags, as a way of generating extra income for the city.

Bobbie Reishman, chairman of council’s Finance Committee, has suggested selling advertising space on trash bags for several years Blackstone said. “But it wasn’t coming together quickly enough, so we decided to go ahead and distribute the bags.”

Gee, I wonder why companies wouldn't jump at the prospect of buying advertising space on trash bags? Maybe because they're bags for trash? Maybe because they sit in a box until they are placed inside a can before they are put inside a truck before they are buried in a landfill? Not much exposure time for an ad.

This whole episode is embarrassing and frustrating.

What is a door to do?

I found interesting this juxtaposition of signs on a door at the Kanawha County courthouse.


A closer look below.


No entry, no exit. Why have a door at all? Isn't that what a wall does?

Extreme Bumper Stickers

Charles West's Law of Bumperstickers: The more bumper stickers on a vehicle, the more politically liberal the driver is.

Well then, what can we say about this?


Pardon the image quality - it was shot through a dirty windshield with one hand while driving 70 MPH.

Drop Your Drawers at Church?

This sign hangs from St. Marks United Methodist Church across from the main post office.


Isn't that special?!

Hyperbolic Hyperbole

Protest groups of all flavors do it. They get caught up in fervor of their rally and every word they say is greeted with a roar of approval from the partisans in attendance. This causes them to make more and more outrageous statements. Sometimes they say the darndest things.

At this rally at the Capitol yesterday, a national environmental group and folks from Coal River Mountain Watch fanned each other's flames until the rhetoric became an exercise in non-sequitors. Trying to bolster her assertion that coal mining exploits people in poor communities one woman said, to great applause, "You'll never find a coal mine sludge pond built above an elementary school in Connecticut!" (source: video from WCHSTV)

Duh?!

W. Va. Bloggers Board

Here is my obligatory post about the new-ish W.Va. Bloggers Message Board. If you're a blogger in West Virginia you probably already know about it. If not you probably don't care.

It's Not Rocket Surgery

In case it isn't clear in the picture, the shirt this grocery store cashier is wearing says:

"Stupiditys Not a Crime
Your Free To Go"

Were do we start? How about "Why on earth would an employer allow this guy to wear a shirt that is insulting to his customers?"

Next, we can move on to the spell-check portion of our program: There are two missing apostrophes and one mis-spelled contraction on the shirt. Now maybe it is supposed to mis-spelled as part of the joke. If so, then the joke is obviously on the buyer and wearer of the garment.

Sax in the City?

I was looking over the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau website and saw this photograph. It struck me as odd, to say the least. First of all, I have lived in this town for forty years and I have never, I repeat, NEVER seen a saxaphone player playing along Capitol Street. On occasion I've seen a harmonica player and that guy who plays the squeeze box near the library, but never a scene like this. This looks like it is either 1) Photoshopped, or 2) Staged.

Either way it doesn't seem to be a photo that captures Charleston's essence. With so many authentic treasures in our little city it seems that the CVB could come up with a better image .

Customer Non-Service Week

I had two episodes this week that capture the essence of customer non-service.

1. Charleston Post Office - On Tuesday at 10:30 AM I walked into the main lobby of the post office to find that the only the window open for service was the one inside the stamp store. There were 15 people waiting in line, many of whom looked exasperated as they stood holding heavy boxes they intended to ship. But the real pièce de résistance was the perky girl postal worker who was asking questions of all the patrons for a survey on - get this - CUSTOMER SATISFACTION! It seemed like the management had decided to herd all the cattle into one chute so the survey would be easier to perform.


2. The picture above requires some explanation: Today at the Huntington Bank drive in bank on the corner of Leon Sullivan Way and Lee Street there were three drive through lanes open PLUS one inside walk-in window. When I was there at around 1:15 there was only one teller trying to keep up with all four windows. But as I waited for my turn at the drive through I noticed that there were two bank employees walking to the cars as they waited delivering cans of soft drinks and candy bars. Soon they came my way and I rolled down my window so I could talk to them. "Would you like a candy bar or a soft drink?" they asked politely. "What's the occassion?" I inquired. I was not prepared for the answer: "It's Customer Appreciation Day!" they replied cheerfully. I thanked them for their offer and told them that THIS customer would appreciate it if they would go inside and help out with the workload. They laughed and walked back to their table of goodies. I continued to wait in line and watch them greet other customers with their appreciation. My drive through bank visit took over 20 minutes to complete. I felt really bad for the lady inside the box but she remained cheerful and polite in spite of it all. I wish I could say the same for myself.

Competition

This strikes me as odd.


A FedEx drop box outside the main post office, on post office property.

It's tantamount to having a WalMart kiosk inside the vestibule at Target. No wonder they keep raising the price of stamps.

Homeless People With Cell Phones

I frequently travel the circuit from Smith Street, near Capitol Market, to the main post office via Leon Sullivan Way. On this route I pass three facilities that serve Charleston's homeless population: The Roark-Sullivan Lifeway Center, Crossroads Shelter and Covenant house. Over the past few months I have noticed more and more folks that appear to be among the "homeless population" talking on cell phones. This intrigues me for many reasons.

First, just the practical logistics of buying a cell phone would seem to be insurmountable for a homeless person. How do they pay for it? Where is the bill sent? Of course there are pre-paid phones, like TracFone, that you can buy without an address or a credit card, but even these require you to add air time via land-line phone or internet. But according to a Raleigh, NC paper, "Cell phones are increasingly popular among the Triangle's homeless. With public pay phones quietly disappearing and prices on cell phones dropping, many homeless people say that it just makes sense."

OK, so it makes sense. But is seems to me that if someone who has no home and no address can figure out how to own a cell phone that they should definitely have the ability to find gainful employment and a permanent residence.

Which brings me to the second intriguing thought: Perhaps many of the people that we see on the streets downtown and we label as "homeless" aren't homeless at all. It's difficult to know, really. I remember years ago hearing a rumor that our own Bill Dunn (Aqualung) actually had a mansion on Kanawha Avenue in Kanawha City (the urban legend said that someone followed him for several days until, at last, he parked his shopping cart on the East End, walked across the 35th Street bridge and serruptitiously let himself into the house via the back door). I know of one man named Harry that lives in a group home in Dunbar. I see him walking all over the Kanawha Valley and he can often be found sitting and chatting with the "homeless" folks under the Leon Sullivan Way exit ramp. Most people think he is homeless, but he is most definitely not.

So where do I go from here? Perhaps we should ask people that are truly homeless to identify themselves as such. Perhaps a large red "H" affixed to their clothes would help.

More Bizarre Cavalierisms

Tony Cavalier said last night that we would be entering a "Goldilocks weather pattern. Not to hot, not too cold, but just right."

An anonymous comment on last week's post reminded me of Tony's oft-used term "scat showers." Sheesh, can you imagine? I think I recall a Stephen King short story to that effect.

The Shrinking Regatta

Perhaps a metaphor for the entire festival, the once GIANT video screen that flanked the stage at Sternwheel Regatta concerts has shrunk until it's roughly the size of a big screen TV. I recall concerts of the past, like The Beach Boys and Ray Charles, when I was unable to get a clear view of the stage at least I could be sure to see them on the huge video screens. Times, they are a changin'.

This picture was snapped on Sunday evening just before the Charlie Daniels concert, during "Rubber Soul's" performance (which, by the way, if you read about in the Charleston Gazette's review you would have thought was "Windjammer").

A Grand Entrance

This is the beautiful entrance to The Smallridge Building on Quarrier Street. My first job was working for the store that shared the building. The store's entrance was one door east. The store is still in business today in another location on the south side of the river. Anyone know the name of the store?