poor thing.....are you lonesome for the SW.Va. twang? You know, where a chair is a chur, and where is wur......actually, a lot of the way people talk in the APPl. mountains is because of their family backgrounds being from Scotland .....my greatgrand mother was a MacFalls, and the name Sutherland is pure Scottish.......how many of you know where your names come from.....is Vanover a Dutch name, maybe Van Over before.....I think Davis is very English, as is Crabtree, and Hawkins, ....what is Mullins....or Phipps? Stanley, I think is English, but what is Yates.....and is Fleming Flemish?
Sheila Alice, what do you know about this.....you wrote a book about the Davis's......and why haven't you posted more......
Got an e-mail from Jennings, who made up some big excuse for not posting, but I didn't believe a word of it......he said he'd been "Too Busy"....like he's been working or something......
Charles Lee, I actually mowed my yard yesterday, and my Mom's today....it's been a lovely last 2 days, the kind of spring weather that you want to last forever.....the leaves on the trees are that soft pale green of early spring and the dogwoods this year are beautiful...the redbuds are out and with the Iris's, it's just gorgeous......we had one very cold night, but everything came thru OK. My yard is full of birds. The goldfinches have five feeding socks in the front and the trees looks like they're full of yellow flowers when they feed.
I had an adventure this past week....I saw that Kroger(that's a local grocery chain...for those of you who live far away) was hiring in a couple of positions....so I completed their online application, thinking the fact I'd not worked in 12 years and was near 61 years old would not make me a likely applicant....I did this on Thur. and the manager called me the next morning .....so I went in for the interview....the guy, who was very intelligent, about in his early 50's, almost begged me to take the job.....of course, I had to grill him about the job market, and he said the quality of job applicants in the last ten years has gone straight down hill....he said most of the hi-school appl. he sees can't or barely can read or write...that people come in, bring their kids to their job interview, or are just people no one would employ......
I spent the next day doing their computer training and completed it in about 4 hours....so I agreed to come in the next morning to see what the job what about....when I came in, the girl who was in charge of the computer training told me no one they'd ever hired had ever finished the computer courses in less than 2 days......now remember, this is a program that kids who have grown up on computers should knock out .....not something an old lady like me, who types with 2 fingers should ace.....
Anyway, I did the job for 5 hours and decided if I was a moron, I might like it....did not take the job.....
The point of all this is.....what the hell has happened to the labor force in our country......are kids really graduating from hi-school illiterate to the point they can't even get a grocery store job as a bag boy????
Every night on the news, it's more and more stories about unemployment in this country......the manager of this store says he can't find anyone to hire.....
I have always thought the education I got at CHS was the best....I went to the Univeristy of Tenn., and often felt like I was back in hi-school, and that was in the mid 60's, so how much has our educational system declined in the last 40 years.....
I work out in the gym with a guy who works for one of the big trucking co.'s in this area, and I was talking to him about this, and he said they can't get new drivers because they can't pass the drug and literacy tests....they can't even read the road signs.......and if any jobs stay in this country, it's going to be in truck driving....
Aside from all the foregoing, I'm still doing the gym thing, vol. at the library and at the Haven of Rest, and am going tommorrow to the hospital to have training in vol. in the ER....and the cancer ward and the heart ward.....
And have finally found a Spanish teacher, so I'm taking Spanish lessons again....I had 2 years of Spanish in college, and am astounded at how much of it I recall....I hope it will come in to play at the ER....there are many Mexicans in this area and I really feel for them.....
Charles Lee....I hope this post has given you your forum "fix".....I have gotten to look for it too.....they're something about reading a long post on our forum that really makes me feel good.....
Oh, and this last thing......what's the story on that company, Equitable, which is building it's headquarters in Clintwood? This is a big natural gas company and is planning to drill 300 new gas wells in Dickenson County in the next year.....and that's just for methane, the trash gas of natural gas....there should be lots of old mining sites that they will be interested in.....
Willie....you are right in the middle of town.....what do you hear about this venture?
Ginger...you have got to post as much as I have this time.....this has been a long one.....
Posted on May 1, 2008, 8:04 PM from IP address 76.5.139.106