A New Stoplight in Town

Special to FreeRepublic ^ | 13 November 2004 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

[Tax-chick]

You mean you're not an evolutionist?!? Thank God we cleared that up :-).

[Mike Fieschko]

Don’t make me come down there.
God.

Reading that, I could hear my Dad saying 'Don't make me come up there', when I was a kid and causing trouble with my brother.

$0.02 about the 'values' voter:

I'm not sure what the question was (I think it was 'What was the most important issue in your choosing whom to vote for'). But to offer 'values' as a choice makes no sense.

Someone who thought Bush lied, Bush went AWOL, the war was about oil, Halliburton keeps people crippled because they make wheelchairs, could select 'values' as their one, most important, factor. 22% of voters selecting 'values' doesn't tell us much at all.

[Gritty]

"... we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country." - William Jennings Bryan, 1896 Democrat Convention

Now there was a Red-Stater and an orator of the first rank!

"One from England is invited to accept this offer, except for anyone who works for the Guardian. The same offer goes to one from New York or Washington, except for Maureen Dowd or Paul Krugman." (in-your-face challenge from CBB)

Great idea!

I ask only that the visitors have a passing familiarity with three books: Common Sense, by Thomas Paine; The Federalist, by Madison, Hamilton and Jay; and Democracy in America, by Alexis deToqueville. (CBB)

Well. That qualification certainly takes the wind out of the sails of that challenge!

I doubt there are any Liberal pundits out there nowadays who have even heard of these works - much less have a passing acquaintance with their contents. If they did, they would have the nearly impossible task of keeping the "Liberal" label with a straight face. Now, if you wanted to discuss "gender issues"...

Nice writing though, Congressman. But, you're going to have to work to cut your marvelous prose down to the obligatory 750 words, eh?

[Congressman Billybob]

Evening, my friend,

As you might have noticed, my columns are getting shorter. I'm starting to apply the 750-word tourniquet in preparation for the anticipated paid gig, as you know about. LOL.

Good get on the quotes from Bryan. We have so few real orators these days because danged near no one is trained in the classics -- which were written for the ear as well as the eye and mind.

Billybob

[billbears]

hey didn't you always have one? where 107 comes out from Cullowhere and crosses 64? or is that Cashiers where that crossing is located? I never really differentiated Highlands from Cashiers. A bunch of transplants bought land in the middle of nowhere and jacked up the price. Welcome to Highlands and Cashiers. I would say give me the Cowee Valley area down towards Franklin (where one side of my family is originally from) any day of the week but they're buying up that too. Oh well, there's places up 129 that aren't gone yet maybe

[Congressman Billybob]

Yep, you're thinking about the intersection in Cashiers. And yep, you're right about real estate prices. (Glad my grandparents bought a house here in 1923.)

Billybob

[CFC__VRWC]

Please let our mutual friends in the Tar Heel State know about this. Many of them will recognize the territory.

I recognize the territory - if there is a more spectacular late October drive anywhere else, I can't imagine it. I didn't make it to the Highlands-Cashiers area this fall, like I had the last few years. Decided to see another part of the mountains instead, and set up camp near Hot Springs. But I'll be back for sure, probably next October.

The God billboards - the first one I saw was the "You think it's hot here?" one. It was on the Florida Turnpike up in Sumter County, the north end of the road just a few miles south of where it ends at I-75. Naturally it was in the middle of August, so I got a good laugh out of it. There's still some of the God billboards up in that area. That's just about my favorite part of Florida, that whole area around Sumter, northern Lake and Marion Counties. I camp up there in the winter and spring whenever I get a couple of days where I can toss the gear in the back of the truck and drive up there and pitch the tent.

There's no mountains in north central Florida, of course, just lots of forests and gentle rolling hills. But there are lots of good, honest, hard-working folks who know that "morality" is a lot more than some cookie cutter phrase that can be picked up off the shelf, packaged and fed to the masses in a series of 30 second sound bites. The exact same kind of people you note are so common in western North Carolina, in other words.

These people are one of the main reasons I keep going back to north Florida, just like why I keep coming back to the N. Carolina mountains. They have a LOT to teach the self-proclaimed "elites" in the "Blue States", if these "elites" could get over themselves just long enough to learn. Thanks for the words about one of my very favorites places on this earth.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[GeronL]

bump