Blogging From West Virginia

Pat and I drove down from Erie, PA to Charleston, WV on Friday and today we attended a "town reunion" for the little coal mining town of Prenter, WV. My father's parent's lived there from the early 1930's to the mid 1960's, after which they relocated to southern Ohio before retiring to the Orlando, FL area in the 1970's.

After spending years in tiny, cold, wooden "shotgun houses", my Grandfather, without a college education, managed to advance far enough in the coal mining company and earn enough money to be able to move his wife and three sons into the nicest house in the entire town.

Here is a photo of what the only brick home in Prenter, WV looks like today.


Papa Roger's house

I mention this not for the purpose of bragging personally because I had nothing to do with it and have not set foot in the building since 1964, but I ask that you consider these facts in the context of my political commentary and as a means of understanding my recent criticism of Paul Krugman and the NY Times.

My family, on both sides, knows more than a little about adversity, and the value of getting a good education and working hard as the best means of obtaining the things you want out of life.

I am embarrassed to say that I feel that I have fallen far short of the accomplishments of both of my grandfathers as well as that of my father's professional achievements, especially when you look at the relative advantage that I have enjoyed over their meager beginnings.

I will, however, not stop trying to improve myself and I shall not sit idly by while "self proclaimed" experts like Paul Krugman tell me how to do what my family has been doing over the past four generations--and it doesn't involve taxing our wealthier neighbors' asses off to pay the costs of our own necessities and frivolities in life.

That's just the way things are--like it or not...