Ricky Harpole column
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Well, this time I won’t write about bootleggers or religion. I won’t write about our children or grandchildren. I won’t mention dogs or horses. Nothing about hunting trips that fell apart. Also nothing about the musical entertainment enterprise or the bounty hunting business.
There’s a pretty fair chance that I won’t have anything to “rattle on” about after all these disclaimers I have dismissed. Like Will Rodgers. I’m stuck with the “news.” That falls in three categories: international, national and local. I’m gonna go with local. That’s Panola County.
Now down in the islands (I mean the Isle of Floyd) we have had a community meeting. We intend to incorporate. To do something like that when you are a small community, you gotta go by government rules first:
You are required to elect a d___d committee. This pretty much is a guarauntee to deny you a township. After all, a jury of any sort numbering 12 people has to be in agreement and a township is worse. We were lucky enough to get by that fearsome article. We were only in session for two years, four days, three hours and 16 minutes, before we came to agreement. It has to be a speed record on rules of incorporation.
Please bear in mind that our plea has not yet been granted, but we have confidence in our request. Anyway this is what we decided on for our townships constitution.
Whereas:
We have our appointed officials (as required by statute) who are willing to serve until a proper election can be arranged. They are Teresa, who reluctantly consented to be our Chief Executive Officer until she could hopefully be impeached.
Ronnie Thompson — we decided he would make the best dog catcher, because dogs like him and thereby cut down on the chasing process.
As for criminal activities, after City Marshal snagged ‘em up we decided not to build a jail but starve ‘em for week on a log chain and give them a chainsaw a piece and send ‘em to the woods. If they come out with a cord of black jack oak firewood they are up for parole. If they come back missing a head, it will be no great loss to society.
Anybody who shoots at a thief and misses the scoundrel will be subject to a stiff fine and confiscation of the weapon he missed him with (so it could be put in more confident hands).
Also anybody that is to lazy to register and vote in any national, state or local election and subsequently whines and moans about the outcome will be banished to their mother-in-law’s house, so they will learn to appreciate the value of a democratic society.
I was approached myself for the municipal judgeship position but a point was brought up and I was disqualified because I have too kind of a heart. They may have judged me correctly. I hope not.
As for taxes, we won’t need em. We have enough sulphur in our water and manure in the yard to make our own powder.
We can make it through the winter with just a little. By gosh, it oughta put Shangri-la to shame.
Our financial advisor knows about a bridge up in Brooklyn we can get at a real bargain. That would connect us to the mainland. As you can see we’re sewerous about this project.
Watch the news,
Ricky Harpole