[Publib] Re: Thursday (now Friday) humor

[George Hazelton]

Joe, as a native of Virginia whose parents lived in West Virginia for many
years, and as one who now resides in Georgia, I feel empowered to address
the issues in your communiqué of today!  

West Virginia residents, or Mountaineers, often speak of "West by God
Virginia" to avoid that confusion.  Relations between the two states are
reasonable.  Do remember that North Carolina has been called "a vale of
humility between two mountains of conceit" referring, of course, to Virginia
and South Carolina, so Virginians are rather condescending toward their
western brethren.   

Kudzu, the bane of the South.  It was imported to this country by the USDA
in an effort to control soil erosion and in the hopes that it would furnish
food for cattle.  The first attempt to establish it failed, I think.  The
second attempt was successful, as far as kudzu is concerned.  However,
farmers found that cattle which ate kudzu tended to have the scours, which I
think results in diarrhea, or something akin to it.  The farmers were also
convinced that snakes made kudzu their home.

I am firmly convinced that should we expire in an atomic Armageddon, the
only life forms to survive will be cockroaches and kudzu.

Driving through the Georgia countryside in summer and contemplating the
green billowing waves of kudzu it is easy to imagine whole buildings
swallowed up.  You can almost see the wretched stuff grow.

It does have an upside, however.  The young shoots, I am told, are beloved
by our asian neighbors as a foodstuff.  The fibers can be woven into a
rather nice fabric, according to my wife who once investigated commercial
production of such.

Enough of my ravings and ramblings.  And its only Wednesday!
 
 
 

George Hazelton
Assistant Director
Henry County Library System
1001 Florence McGarity Pkwy
McDonough, GA  30252
Phone:  770-954-2806
FAX:    770-954-2808
email:    ghazelton at mail.henry.public.lib.ga.us

 


-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Joe Schallan
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 3:08 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] Re: Thursday (now Friday) humor

West Virginia has been a state since 1863, a seccession
from the rest of seccessionist Virginia, whose departure
from the Union was something with which the Westerners
did not agree.  Perhaps the rest of Virginia still refuses
to acknowledge? Or forgive?

Which reminds me that on my one and only trip to
Virginia -- Charlottesville on a very hot and moist
summer day -- I was advised to "move around more"
or I could very well find myself engulfed in kudzu.

It is my understanding that vast tracts of Georgia have
disappeared under kudzu, including some libraries.

A high school friend of mine has lived for many years
in Manhattan, and he says anything north of West
145th Street is "upstate."

Thus, Yankee Stadium is "upstate."

And then there is poor New Mexico, whose location
and status seem so questionable that New Mexico
Magazine regularly runs a feature called "One of Our
Fifty is Missing":

http://www.nmmagazine.com/FEATURES/50missing.html

My favorite is the tale about the fellow who wanted
FedEx to ship a package to a friend in Albuquerque,
only to be told by the counter person that his FedEx
branch didn't handle international shipments.

It is said that Iowa is "flat, dry (in the sense of
teetotaling), Protestant, and Republican" except my
home town of Dubuque, which is "hilly, Catholic,
very, very wet, and Democratic."  I recall murmurings
from the rest of Iowa about cutting Dubuque
County loose and letting Wisconsin or Minnesota
bid on it.

Regional antipathies (or should that be "pathologies"?)
and misinformation extend even to the library world,
of course.  Several weeks ago a patron gleefully
ripped my bark off -- taking me to task for our pitiful
lack of subscriptions to scholarly and scientific journals.
I weakly countered that public library branches typically
don't carry such journals, but I was informed that back
home in Denver, every single neighborhood branch of
the Denver Public Library has extensive print
subscriptions to academic journals.

Of course, I had violated one of the prime directives
of public library work:  Never argue with a patron.

Joe Schallan
Phoenix
a.k.a.
The Big Chimichanga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimichanga)
The Navel of Arizona
The Straw that Stirs the Arizona Drink
The Booming Metropolis Up I-10 from the
  Insignificant Cesspit that is Tucson

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