Published: October 29, 2005 09:32 pm      

Our Readers Speak -- Sunday, October 30, 2005

Difference between dumb hillbilly and a smart one

What’s the difference between a dumb hillbilly and a smart one? A smart hillbilly would know breathing coal dust, magnetite and aluminin oxide (the white dust floating in the air around tipples) is bad for you; a dumb would not.

A smart hillbilly would know 3 billion gallons of water behind an untamped earthen dam would not make kids right beneath it safer, but put them in jeopardy, and a smart hillbilly would know that if you can drive several miles from a coal mine and a tipple and still see dust and dirt on anything that hasn’t been cleaned, it stands to reason that a school a mere hundred yards away has to be covered with dust and its ventilation system overwhelmed.

Here’s the tricky part. The governor, A.T. Massey and some spouses of Massey employees who like to go to town every payday say that all that dust is good for the kids and the dam makes them safer, and they feel good about sending thier kids there. Imagine that. I wonder if they will feel that way when they drag them out of the mud down about Racine? Or when thier childern or their neigbors’ children die of some lung disease or cancer.

They are the smart hillbillies and the rest of us are the dumb hillbillies. They are probably the same ones who frown when they see West Virginia 49th and 50th in everything in the newspaper and on the next page see a picture of Robert Byrd smiling and telling them all the good he has done for our state. Tisk, tisk, tisk, dumb hillbillies or smart hillbillies?

Dewey Honaker

Rock Creek





Stratton fifth grade says thanks for help with trip

The Stratton Elementary fifth-grade students and teachers would like to thank the sponsors who helped us raise money for our field trip. On Sept. 24 we held a car wash sponsored by Auto Zone. Other sponsors and donors included Kroger, Bob Evans on Harper Road, Wendy’s on Harper Road, Captain D’s on Eisenhower Drive, and Heiner’s Bakery. We also would like to thank the Francois family, the Greuber family, and the Meador family. Of course, we also appreciate the people who bought hot dogs and allowed us to wash their cars.

Due to everyone’s help, we raised over $300 toward our field trip. Thanks to everyone who cares about Stratton Elementary, we had a great carwash.

Fifth Grade Students and Teachers

Stratton Elementary





Source of the term ‘hillbilly’

Katherine Watkins of Beckley contacted me several years ago about the word “hillbilly.”

She had found a source saying that King William III of Orange, Protestant King of England who defeated the Roman Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690, had the support of the Protestant Scots-Irish in that struggle. They became known as Orangemen and Billy Boys, or King Billy’s men, Billy being the diminutive for William — King William III.

Many of those Billy Boys and their descendants later camed to the American colonies, some settling in the Appalachian mountains where they were known as “hillbillies,” according to her source.

I also found a source on the Internet supporting her version of the term, and one other, which says “billy” was a name originating in England during the 1500s that was applied to simple country folk. In Virginia, the Tidewater and Piedmont regions were settled primarily by the English, while the Scots-Irish and Germans took up land in the more mountainous western parts of the colony, including present day West Virginia. Therefore I am inclined to accept the King William version. The term “Billy Boy” is still used in Protestant Northern Ireland.

By the way, if you ever visit Scotland, do not call those folks “Scotch.” They will promptly inform you that they are Scots. Scotch is whisky.

Jim Wood

Beckley





What the ages tell us about Halloween

March 1964, I cut this writing out of a magazine to read to my children at Halloween.

Halloween, the eve of all Saints, in Modern America is a children’s fun festival but its roots, largely forgotten today, go far back into the dark ages and fear some mysteries of pagan antiquity. In the calendar of the ancient Celts Halloween was the last night of the old year the night when witches and warlocks held their unholy revels. It was also the night when restless ghosts of the dead roved abroad. The innocent children’s games of “trick or treat” era visage of grim pagan rituals for placating the wandering spirits, appeasing them so that they won’t harm the living.

Monday night, children clad in grotesque costumes and masks going from door to door, demanding their token treats on threat of spectral mischief. Junior-size sheeted ghosts, skeletons, witches and goblins will roam streets. I am prepared for the little trick or treaters. Got a platter of cookies, candy to hand out through the early evening. Happy Halloween to all the tricksters.

Dorothy Dye

Allen Junction