An Editorial by John Estridge
When I turned 18 on Jan. 28, 1975, my dad gave me a choice: Leave and live or stay and not live.
I chose the former
That took me to live with my sister Karen and my brother-in-law Tom in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was one of the best educations I have ever experienced.
During my time there, I worked two part-time jobs and finished my high school. Later, I found out I did not need to finish high school as I had enough credits to graduate from Union County High School at mid-term.
However, I did not know that fact so I went to Spottsylvania County High School where everyone, including the teachers, thought I was a narcotics undercover officer. The principal, who lived beside Tom and Karen, was very happy there had just been one murder there during the 74-75 school year. Thus, it was a very rough school that was integrated but still was segregated if you know what I am saying. My friends tended to be people of color, which did not go over well with the vast majority of the white students there. Even some of the black students did not like me because of that.
This is off topic, but we had a senior trip to Washington D.C. where we went from the high school to nearby Washington in buses. I got on with my new friends who happened to be black. I was the only white person on the bus and even my friends told me it was not cool to be on that bus. None of the buses moved while I was on that bus. So, I rode on one of the white buses and tried not to get stabbed for being a NARC when I was not a NARC.
Luckily, I only attended the high school during the mornings because my English teacher told me on one of my first days, he heard guys talking about jumping me in the restroom. Thus, I never saw the inside of one of the restrooms at that high school.
There was some squirming in the seats, and I stopped along some of the backroads on my way back home.
My part-time jobs were at Hardees and a Shell service station/car wash with the emphasis on car wash.
Those two jobs were 180 degrees apart. At Hardees, the assistant manager in charge of the group I worked with was the head of a ring of car stereo thieves who were my co-workers. I tried to explain to them I was not a snitch but preferred to spend my off-time exploring that part of Virginia and reading and not taking a short cut to prison.
They did not believe me and treated me poorly for as long as I could stand working there and receiving my paltry paycheck. The Shell station was managed by a very pleasant alcoholic. As long as we stayed busy, he could care less. During rainy days, he regaled us with very interesting tales of his Navy years complete with X-rated thematic stories he was probably making up as he was telling them.
At that Shell station when the times were slow, another male teenager from Fredericksburg and I would take wire brushes to rusty 55-gallon drums. I cannot remember my co-worker’s name, but he had a scholarship to the University of Virginia and planned a career in finance.
He would call our duties “an exercise in futility.” I liked it when he would call it that and complain about it the entire time. He had a great sense of humor and a very good vocabulary for cussing. It really made that exercise in futility tolerable.
And all of that is to tell you – my friends, my relatives, those who enjoy my writings and those who hate everything about me — this is an exercise in futility.
Many people say: “this country is going to hell in a handbasket.” People, the handbasket has reached its destination and is now empty. We are no longer in transit. We have reached that hell and have really been here awhile.
And to my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, I am terribly sorry.
My father taught me one good thing: to not trust the federal government.
An aside here: During the 70s, I was a longhair, good-for-nothing hippie. However, hippies at that time – as a whole, we were considered liberal – were very anti-government. Like dad, even though he was not a hippie, we did not trust the federal government.
But mostly at that time the liberals did not trust government and the conservatives did. My dad was the exception. I do believe he liked the government more than hippies, but that is neither here nor there.
Now, the liberals want more government and the conservatives do not trust the government.
I started my adulthood with that bias about the federal government. When I got into journalism, I added state government to the federal government in the category of distrust. I vote Republican more than Democrat, but those fake Republicans that inhabit the statehouse including the governor’s office are not in the least out for us and could care less about us.
A supermajority for either party is never a good thing and invites corruption and waste. The one state representative I have ever trusted and thought a lot of quit after his second term. He was a relatively young man and a rising star in the state’s Republican Party. I was with the Connersville News Examiner at the time he quit. I interviewed him, and he told me an on-the-record answer and an off-the-record answer. I always honored off-the-record comments.
His on-the-record comment was the proverbial “I’m going to spend more time with my family.” The off-the-record was – and I am paraphrasing – “…to go on, I would have to sell my soul to the Republican Party leaders and state politics and nothing is worth that.”
That left the local politicos.
There were always problems with local elected leaders but much, at least at the beginning of my tenure here during the late 1980s, was ignorance of the Open Door Law — which the law once had meaning but like everything else is meaningless because it has been circumvented to those in power.
There were times a commissioner or two tried to run the county like a fiefdom, but those things did not last long. There were also a trio of county council members who had a run of a few years who thought they were the smartest people in the world and the rest of us should just shut up and stay out of their way. Two quit and one was voted out of office. They predicted bankruptcy and worse for the county, and it has seemingly, financially speaking, done very well in their absence.
But now we have people in office who care about themselves and about those who wield power in this town and in this county. It may be one or two elected officials have jobs outside of their elected office in the county where they are afraid to rock the proverbial boat as their bosses are among the power-wielding class. It may be they have been in power so long they have merely lost their way, their moral compass. Once a person starts down that slippery slope of circumventing what is right, the slope turns almost vertical, and it is a short distance to reach the bottom. Once one makes the wrong decision to help a bud or a rich person, then that decision to turn that way is easier every time.
Coverups at the county level are as numerous as Buckeyes on Brookville Lake on July 4 Weekend. How anything for the good of the taxpayers ever comes out of the Government Center in the Old Brookville High School is really a miracle. But you do not hear any of that because everything that occurs is covered up by those in power. And I do not mean just some of the county commissioners, but those behind the curtain who wield power both in the town and the county and many of those who are elected in both venues.
There are those in power in the entirety of the county who are just in power for themselves. An example is Brookville Town Council with the exception of two females, who I believe are still trying to do the correct thing.
But, unfortunately, county government is now as bad as town government.
Yesterday, I tried to count the elected officials in this county who I think are really trying their best to serve the public. I did not use all the fingers on one hand and surely not the thumb.
I do not want to get deeply into particular incidents to illustrate my point but one is economic development in the county. At one time in the not-too-distant past, the person in charge of economic development was at the end of strings held by the ruling class, the rich people in the town and county.
The person in charge now is the same. The person at that not-too-distant past had the backing of two commissioners in power at that time. Both were one-and-done commissioners. This time the economic development director has the backing of two long-term commissioners.
The things that are happening with economic development in the county right now are supposed to benefit all of us. That is like believing the Russian invasion of the Ukraine was a good thing and the Russians were really threatened by a small neighbor.
What is going on now will help the .01 percent of 1 percent of those at the top of the economical chain here in the county and will not help anyone else in the least.
Let’s look at one example. It is actually two but they are tied together: making taxpayers purchase a very possibly failing golf course and the subsequent annexation of the area on Snob Knob, which is adjacent to and around said golf course.
This is supposed to be good for all of us. With the purchase and the subsequent annexation, it will fill the schools with students because of all the people around the globe who will flock to Franklin County because of condos and new houses. We were told that in the meetings none of the public attended.
However, we now hear two of the county schools are closing and every student in the county will be attending Brookville schools because the students and families continue to flee the county and the county school system.
I am not degrading the teachers or the administration. There are so many reasons what is happening is happening it could fill a textbook, but we were told if we shut up and let those in power who know everything – as we know nothing – get their way, all would be good in the town and county. Some of the school board members are very much in bed with those behind the golf course and annexation and those comments about how the developments will fill the schools. They are really trying to have it both ways at the moment.
The golf course, the annexation, the condos, the new houses will not help us or fill the schools. A few people will get wealthier, and you and me will be none the better. Actually, the vast majority of us will be worse off as taxes and fees will skyrocket.
They would not be closing schools if anyone in power anywhere in this town and county believed any of what they have been saying. And if you believe they are not seriously considering closing schools, go back to my Ukraine example.
The county officials may say they have nothing to do with that. They are in bed with the town officials regarding grants and being silent when they should have spoken out for what is right and what is good.
So, should we vote everyone out. That is the knee-jerk reaction, and it may help in the short-run. However, it has been my experience the cycle just begins anew and soon there are new swimmers in the swamp or the cesspool or whatever one wants to call it.
Some say I have these feelings because I am depressed. My personal life has never been better. My Long Suffering Wife Ruth and I have our health – for the most part. Our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have good health – for the most part. Ruth and I are not wealthy but thank God we do not have to sprint to the bank every week to beat our outstanding checks.
But it is our town, our county, our state, our country, the whole shebang that is rotten to the core.
Can anything be done? I really do not know. I do not see unicorns and beautiful sunrises in our future. Is it the End of Times? Maybe. I have heard that my entire life. It seems to be endemic in the religion I grew up with.
Or is this just a really bad time in the cycle of governments. We have always had corruption, but it seems to move like the phases of the moon, waning and waxing. Right now it is definitely waxing. It may stay full for as long as it remains.
So, I do not know.
But I do know:
This was an exercise in futility.