[Editorial Note—This article was pulled from my old weekly column "Just a Thought" in the McCreary Voice.  It is a humorous precautionary tale about the difficulties of living in an Appalachian county that is predominantly owned by the government, and is plagued with tree hugger's from cities everywhere who have never set foot there....]

Wiley Coyote is always buying something from the Acme Company to catch the Road Runner. A casual look at his critter habits suggests that he has spent several hundred thousand dollars on mail order equipment for one purpose or another. This indicates that Mr. Coyote is well paid and has a large discretionary income. McCreary County has hundreds of square miles of Federal land filled with critters. Armed with these two bits of information, I set out to determine just how much critters spend within our local economy, and where they are employed.

Signs were set out within the forest asking for critters to participate in a survey. The only call received was from an environmental group based in Knoxville claiming that the signs ruined the pristine nature of the forest and threatened that they would sue if the signs were not removed immediately. Like most McCreary citizens, this writer does not make a lot of money that can buy lawyers and moved to get the signs down quickly. I thought about using an ATV, but was told that I could not ride it on most of the roads in the forest and park. Continue reading “Critters Don’t Pay Taxes” »

Tags: Appalachia, county, enviromnentalists, Environment, national forest, national park, recreation, tourism, tree hugger, trees