Our friend Judi Cain, grand mistress of farmer’s market photography, jogged off to Morgantown last year when her apartment became unavailable, finances tightened and her West Virginia daughters beckoned. “The hounds were yipping at my heels,” she reported. “Take me home, country roads, to the place I belong.”
Trouble is, “almost heaven” West Virginia really isn’t. Life may be old there, older than the trees, but the people who live there are dropping like Tesla stocks. The Mountaineer State has scary-high rates of chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease (highest in the nation). West Virginia is also Number One for arthritis. You won’t be surprised to hear the state has the highest rate of depression in the country, perhaps because it has one of the lowest levels of education, limited access to nutritious foods and one of the worst drug problems in the nation. 21% of adults smoke, 41% are obese and the state has the second shortest life expectancy nationwide. Lovely Huntington owns the tiara for Unhealthiest City in America with an obesity rate of 49%. Who ya gonna call? Even Fatbusters won’t touch the place.
As for Judi….get on the bus, Gus. Make a new plan, Stan. Slip out the back, Jack. Drop off the key, Lee. And get yourself free.
T For Texas….T For Take Another Look.
As everybody knows, people are moving to Texas in droves, many educated workers drawn by the ever-expanding tech universe between Austin and San Antone. Surprises await, especially for those from points west and used to primo medical care.. Texas ranks near the bottom where livability is concerned. The Lone Star State is down in the cellar in health care with a weak 182 primary care providers per 100,000 residents according to the United Health Foundation. Texas leads the nation by a mile in residents without health insurance and a staggering 19% of all people with a credit score have medical debts that have gone to collection.
Chances are you won’t like the politics much, either. Texas has no public accommodation law barring discrimination against non-disabled people, a barrage of laws targeting the LGBTQ+ community and an abortion ban which is the strictest in the country. If you lose your job, state employment benefits cover less than 10% of the average cost of living. The governor is a heartless imbecile, Senator Ted Cruz is worse and there’s no place to park in Austin ever. Keep moving.
We don’t even need to mention the Gooberland states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Oklahoma is boring, very very boring, and you can only get an abortion there at gunpoint. Watching the wind come sweepin’ down the plain is vastly overrated. Kansas (The Bookburner State) is teeming with anti-education right-wing Republicans with no sense of humor. When Dorothy famously told Toto “We’re not in Kansas, anymore,” Toto said ‘Thank God!’”
In the deep South states mentioned above, they still have separate water coolers for Democrats and hippies. Louisiana is the only state in the union unhealthier than West Virginia, reveling in obesity and the fourth-highest rate of premature deaths. Alabama will not let you vote if you are black unless you have a note from Nick Saban. If you are white and get off the bus without a MAGA hat in Mississippi, toothless people will follow you around asking questions and flicking lighted matches in your direction. Florida is slightly better because we have exotic beaches, orange trees, the Flying Pig Parade and my wife lives there.
In the face of all this, Judi Cain wants to know what’s a poor girl to do?
“Please Come To Boston For The Springtime.”---(Dave Loggins)
In 2023 and 2024, WalletHub named Massachusetts the best state to live in, based on affordability, economy, education, health, quality of life, safety, Woodman’s clam shop and because Greg Barriere lives there. In 2024, CNBC named Vermont as one of the best states for quality of life and New Hampshire was cited by World Population Review (great air quality, renewable energy, good climate change policies, Hampton Beach and Kathy Killeen Scanlon).
U.S. News & World Report cited Utah, with New Hampshire, Nebraska, Minnesota, Idaho and Vermont right behind. But who’s going to trust anybody who mentions Nebraska? We wouldn’t argue with Utah, though, it’s got everything---crazed Mormons with a sixpack of wives, grand canyons, great salt flats, Moab and a city called Levan, which is “navel” spelled backwards.
So there’s hope, after all, for Judi Cain and the rest of us looking for greener pastures. You don’t need to be coy, Roy. Just warm up the truck, Buck. Get out on the road, Toad. And set yourself free!
Oprys Save Lives
It was early on the evening of August 3, 2024 and the crews at UF’s University Auditorium were putting the finishing touches on the stage, the sound & lighting equipment and the seating area in preparation for the Hogtown Opry’s big Rhonda Vincent concert 90 minutes later. The auditorium doors had not been locked yet, so anyone who came very early had access to the hall. Few chose that option, but one very frazzled middle-aged woman (we’ll call her Mallory) buzzed up to me and asked if I was the man in charge. She was shaking too much to shoot straight if she had a weapon, so I admitted I was. Immediately, I was inundated by the terrible story of her current life, which involved the sudden death of a son and several other sad surprises. If the lady wasn’t in the midst of a full-blown nervous breakdown, one was waiting for her just around the corner, and that’s not an adventure most of us are used to dealing with.
Nonetheless, all was not lost because Rhonda Vincent was in town, and Rhonda was a woman of faith. Mallory had met her at an earlier time and was a true believer forevermore. Now, she had won a ticket to the show from a local radio station which was promoting the concert and she hoped the tide of her life might be turning. I remembered an ad rep for the station telling me that one woman who had won a ticket broke down crying when she got the news, not your everyday reaction.
Mallory profusely thanked me for the complimentary ducats (she had a lady friend in tow), which were in the 20th row. “I’d love to be closer,” she said, but I’m just so happy to see Rhonda again.” I always keep a few tickets in my pocket in case Dolly Parton or Steve Spurrier show up, so I pulled them out, looked them over and gave Mallory two in the fifth row. You’d think she’d won the crown on Jack Bailey’s Queen for a Day. I felt a little guilty for unleashing the woman on her seatmates up front but knew if they were concert regulars they’d undoubtedly experienced a lot worse. Nobody complained, but I believe I noted occasional outbursts of rampant enthusiasm from her general area during the show. It was a great night for everyone there, but that was the last time I saw Mallory, though I idly wondered about her from time to time. Needless to say, if you’re in the impresario business, weird things are an occupational hazard. Sometimes, Randall Roffe shows up.
The Rest Of The Story
A few days ago, I got a message from the ubiquitous Cathy DeWitt, one of Gainesville’s twinkling musical lights. DeWitt’s group had opened the show for Rhonda Vincent and made enough of an impression on Mallory that she called Cathy nine months later, telling her of the kind gentleman who had given her the great seat and about the wonderful time she had that evening. Mallory said she had been in a very dark place that concert night, even considered the ultimate weapon, but the show brought her great joy and saved her life. Saved her life! Whether that’s true or not, it’s every producer’s dream rave review and we’re putting it on our business cards forthwith. But that’s not all.
Then came the plot-twist blockbuster. The tide of Mallory’s life had indeed turned, things began falling in place and on March 15th she is being married. Cathy DeWitt and her band are rehearsing like mad to be ready to play at the wedding. That crazy woman you heard screaming her approval from the fifth row got one of life’s rare mulligans, testimony to the power of the fiddle and the mandolin. And some of us who were there at the fork in the road reached into our little box of stars and plunked a gold one on our foreheads.
“Music is the medicine of the breaking heart.” Leigh Hunt said that.
That’s all, folks….
