Rita

Editor,

I wanted to put a face on this place we call home. I am going to be 46 years old come Spring. Sadly, it will probably be my last on at home.

This community was built in 1915; my grandpa came here in the ’30s. I lived in the house my daddy was born in. I raised my three children there too. My mother passed away when I was 5-years old. My daddy died when I was 12-years old.

I lived with my maternal grandma until I was 16-years old. I rented my first house there, it was a great home to me, even though it was old and it needed my TLC. My living room was where my daddy was born and raised. My old homeplace is gone now.

Different companies have owned our place thru the years, as the coal companies get what coal they want, and then we go to the next one. When I still had our old house the rent went from $6 per month to $100 then to $200. I could not afford to stay; we bought a used trailer and had to watch my house I loved get destroyed.

I put the trailer next to where my home once stood. I figured my house my be gone but I’m still home.

My children are raised, all but one lives here too. They live all around me, raising my grandchildren where they were raised.

Now it is 2012, they have a new owner we’ve never met and they are saying we have to go. At first they acted like they would sell us the land we were on. I would buy mine and I’m sure everyone else would too.

There are generations of families here; five in mine. We were given false hope, a lot of us have no where to go, nothing to go on … all for progress, right?

What about all of us people? Build things for tourists … throw out the poor people? What’s to tour? All of the people will be gone, the people that make up this place. Live will never be the same for us. I will never spend a red penny at the new tourist place they are talking of putting here. I wish it nothing but bad Karma because of the heartless way it was acquired.

Not even anything to relocate on; we don’t matter, this is West Virginia, a proud place to live. They are doing away with the people who make it a proud place to live and work. All of my people logged or worked in the mine. A lot of the trails people are riding on are old logging roads our men put in logging. We pay to ride them now, just like the tourists do.

At any given time we are told to leave our homes when someone comes up with a get rich quick scheme. It’s a shame … shame on them. I don’t know where all of us will end up or how things will go for us. I pray for us all and grieve for a home and life I think will be gone forever. All I can do is pray. I don’t know what else to do; I can’t see the Lord letting someone prosper out of someone else’s loss.

Thanks for listening. Hopefully things will change. Someone might read this that has a heart to help us. Maybe the guy who bought this will have a change of heart … out of shame. Maybe not — I can’t see that happening. It’s a shame what money can do to some. I think making West Virginia a home with those riches, not running off our people. We are West Virginia, all of us. Put the money back into our communities, build them back up. The people who own us now is from Dodge City, Kansas. What do they know of us mountain people? They don’t care, they won’t even come to talk to us or see the faces of us people they’re running off.

It’s easier to send a guy to us to do their dirty deeds. My neighbor is in her 90s; I have another living in a camper in his 80s, and a lot of women trying to raise their children.

Look at us. Don’t pretend we don’t exist, we are proud Logan County residents from Rita, West Virginia (home). Don’t let this keep happening to our people and our homes.

Thank you,

Sherri Nichols

Rita

“2016”

Editor,

I asked myself, ‘why are you writing this?’ Those who follow politics are informed as they desire to be. Others would rather remain apathetically ‘asleep’, that is until their pocketbooks are affected. We ‘fiddle’ while ‘Rome burns.’

My husband, son and I went last Sunday to view the documentary “2016,” about Obama’s dream/nightmare for America. I, too, was really interested in the workings of the government until a few years ago. Still, I see no human can solve our endless problems — not Republican, Democrat, Independent, Tea Party, etc. Some of these may love our country more than the present administration.

I applauded once the documentary ended and the approximately 100 in attendance joined in. Not sure why something so sad and scary should be. The fact that someone dared to delve into the past of a sitting president and have that investigation make it to a theater is amazing. Only three theaters in West Virginia have shown it thus far. Don’t expect NBC, ABC or CBS to report on “2016” except negatively.

So, if you dare to know, go see it. We went to the Great Escape Theater in Nitro. Be informed; hear both sides, then decide. Don’t be deceived.

To truly be enlightened, read God’s instructional manual and pray earnestly that this doesn’t overtake us ‘like a thief in the night.’

Sincerely,

Sharon Hill

Chapmanville

The dreadful day is here

Editor,

The USA has undergone a very dramatic transformation of character over the past two generations since the Great War. By default, at the end of World War II, we were the center of commerce for the world. The war had been fought on foreign soil, not ours. Their countries were in ruin but ours was set for unprecedented success. Our manufacturing and agriculture capabilities could revive the whole world and we did.

As a result, America came of age, but not in a good way. Following WWII our economy became so prevalent that the dollar became the anchor for all currencies throughout the world. The phrase, “as sound as a dollar” was spoken with pride! I guess we printed “In God We Trust” on the money in hopes that we could fool God about what really mattered to us? The evidence of scripture and history is that material abundance generally causes people to walk away from God, not toward Him.

By the 1960s, familial lust for wealth had reached a fever pitch. Virtually all of America had given in to personal debt so great, that mothers began leaving their homes and the care of their children in order to pursue more meaningful careers. (After all, we need that second car … don’t we?) Then with Mom and Dad both working outside the home, the rearing of our children was handed off to that most trusted baby sitter of all … the television! And so, the re-education and replacement of Christian values was fully underway.

Today, the cause of Christ, once so clearly declared by our Puritan forefathers is all but gone in America. The concept of a nation founded upon the gospel of Christ, with a mission to evangelize a hurting world simply does not reside in the hearts of our people. We have numbed ourselves from the reality of this present evil age by escaping into hours of television fantasies. While most of the world starves to find its next meal, we wait with bated breath to see who will win the next million dollars on some game show! We can’t see the world’s pain, but we do have nice church buildings … don’t we? So here we sit, nearly eighty years since WWII and we haven’t a clue “who” we really are. Just as unfaithful Israel and Judah in Old Testament days turned their back on YAHWEH, we Americans have exchanged the blessing of His presence for idols of our own making.

Our idols are not named Baal or Moloch. We prefer Lexus and Juicy Couture as our objects of affection. We have bought into the lie that material prosperity is the best way to measure a successful life, secular or Christian. So while greedy businessmen compare the size of their airplanes, Christian leaders compare the size of their church buildings! Just turn on your favorite idolatrous carnival huckster show, and watch as these well groomed, flashy preachers gesture with their diamond clad, pinky rings and Rolex watches in front of their adoring masses. What moaning for glory! What aching for fame! What a disgrace to the name and cause of Jesus Christ! These men are the wolves the Apostle Paul warned of. They do not feed the sheep, they feed off the sheep! I believe the Bible aptly identifies them as “men whose God is their own belly”!

Do we really believe God has any part in this madness? Their shame is clearly evident to anyone with the mind of Christ. They are false teachers in every way. Do we really believe a political election will unwind this time bomb? I don’t.

Lord send us John the Baptist, for I fear the dreadful day is already here!

Gary Lee Corns

Logan