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Hard Times in Rural Tennessee

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When Christian Herter was Governor of Massachusetts, he was running hard for a second term in office. One day, a busy morning chasing votes (and no lunch), he arrived at a church barbeque. It was late afternoon and Herter was famished.

As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the women serving chicken. She put a piece on the plate and turned to the next person in line.


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“Excuse me,” Governor Herter said, “Do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?”

“Sorry,” the women told him, “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person.”

“But I’m starved,” the governor said. “Sorry,” the women said again… “Only one to a customer.”

Governor Herter was a modest and unassuming man, but he decided this time he would throw a little weight around. “Do you know who I am?” he said. “I am the governor of this state.”

“Do you who I am?” the women responded. “I’m the lady in charge of the chicken, move along, mister.”

Most of the hard times in rural areas today stem from the fact that those of us who live in the country didn’t have enough wisdom and backbone to oppose the politicians and greed mongers who wanted another “piece of chicken.” They came for our factories- one after another, until they stripped us of our economic power. Instead of saying to George Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton and Al Gore, “our, factories stay here, move on, “ we played possum and now look at our deprived rural Tennessee, and for that matter, throughout rural America. Jobs are gone! Morality is bankrupt! Young rural Tennesseans face an uncertain future.

It was not enough to take our factories, close family farms, and refuse to expand the highway system into rural Tennessee, but the politicians and greed mongers have closed their doors to technical schools and state colleges by raising the cost of education beyond the reach of rural young people.

All these careless people want id “another piece of chicken.” I say, “kill some buzzards and feed them their meat, for they don’t deserve another piece of chicken.” Tell them to move on and we aren’t voting for them.

Those of us who live in rural Tennessee need to tighten  our belts, quit trying to keep up with “the Jones” in building bigger houses, and buying bigger cars, and tell all these pompous cats who are trying to strip the rural areas of their lifeblood to move on, for we have adopted a “fighting moo.”

Never give up! Tell them, “the chicken is gone and we’ll fry another chicken!” Tell them, “All we can give you pompous cats is some buzzard eggs and a few green persimmons.”

Amen!