very small town politiking

Arnold for the Recalled California Governors post? Weapons of Mass Destruction still missing? Pesky Liberian Dictators super-glued to their power thrones? I say "FEH" to it all. Let me tell you what the REAL political brouhaha is for August, 2003: Does Barryville, NY, population about 78, need a three-bay, unmanned, 24-hour drive-thru carwash in the dead-center of town?

Questions about adequate ingress and egress of an already congested small country road? You bet! Afraid of the environmental impact from detergents and contaminated water leaching into the water supply ("Someone's poisoned the waterhole!")? Un-HUH! Worried that the defining landmark of "Downtown Barryville" will become The Carwash thus significantly and negatively impacting the property values of surrounding land and homes (of which ours sits, well, right across the dang road)? Oh but YES! Luckily a rash of posters and letters to the residents seemingly from nowhere have sprung up to help protect the peace of our pretty little corner of Heaven. This isn't to say a nasty little retort of a flyer inciting the 'life-long residents' to put down the 'weekenders and newcomers' and support this Very Beautiful Carwash didn't appear today at the local post office and deli. That being said, the first time a 'life-long resident' uses the word fag or queer at the meeting on Wednesday, it will be known henceforth as the Barryville Redneck Rumble. Jets and Sharks, kittens, Jets and Sharks.