| By Alvin Engelke
 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
Rev. Juanita Lockhart filled her regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. church. The Marks family, the Hurst family, Juanita & Steve provided special music. Next Sunday, April 30, Rev. Carlos Nutter will serve Holy Communion.
Larry Arthur, formerly from Little Creek, passed away at age 58. He had a history of ticker trouble but his untimely passing was unanticipated. We do not know how many days have been given to us. Larry had worked for Natural Gas Development Corp. and other oil and gas companies.
C. Glen Arthur had eye surgery and is scheduled for another turn under the laser. Those calling on Glen included brother Terry and sister Sherry.
Hope Starcher had a birthday party Saturday at the Creston Community Building.
Richard McFall was visiting in Creston over the weekend.
Ralph Cunningham, who recently expanded his metering and chart reading business in Grantsville, was attending to business in Creston, as were some of Mother Hope's workmen.
The Banker Lady & The Oil Tycoon, Matthew & Dana Shimer and family were attending to business in Spencer. Dana noted that the folks at The Minnie Hamilton Health Care Center read the Creston News on their noon break.
The wood boring "bumblebees" have been very active in the Creston area. Tadpoles are swimming in water puddles which have not dried out because of continuing rain showers. Over the weekend the West Fork and the river both came up and "violated federal pollution guidelines" since the clay particles are analyzed as free aluminum, which, if ionic and metallic, would be toxic. Some would use data and numbers "to prove" anything even if the opposite were to be true. Recently someone said the Greenland ice sheet was getting smaller when actually snow accumulation in the interior was more and the mass of ice is actually increasing.
Lilacs, wild geraniums and tulips are blooming and the hairy bitter cress has already gone to seed. Greens are fine for picking and several are looking forward to harvesting the wily gobblers. The buzzards have been doing well down on the dePue straight feasting on deer that lost arguments with motor vehicles. Over in Roane County on the old Benniah dePue place there is another gathering place for Brer Buzzard and his friends.
When one is out and about one hears about how much fun folks had at the Creston poker run and they are looking forward to the next one.
Mr. & Mrs. Junior Brown and son Beelzebubba were attending to business in Grantsville.
The price of local Penn grade oil rose $3.25 Saturday to $71.25/bbl which would be the highest that oil likely has been since the 19th century. Some feel that folks like Mark Rich (who once owned Ravenswood Aluminum & received an infamous pardon) and George Soros are manipulating the world price for political gain. Rich is known as one of the world's biggest bulk commodity traders.
With the high crude prices and resultant higher gasoline prices (but still much lower than in Europe) there are now calls for government intervention. Not so long back Albert Gore, Jr. was bemoaning the fact that gasoline was too cheap and ordinary folks were using too much.
"Within a decade governments will formalize energy policy into national security policy. If war is too important to be left to the generals, energy is too important to be left to free marketers and America is likely to lead the way." An article in The Financial Times notes that a bill now introduced in the U. S. Senate would allow the government to "control supply and demand" and [set prices]. This would also, of course, provide lots of cushy positions for well connected folks who choose not to work in the labor force.
Those who remember the last "energy crunch" may remember some of the consequences of artificial prices then and older folks remember the consequences of the Federal Power Commission (now FERC) setting wholesale natural gas prices artificially low to eradicate most independent producers to the benefit of the Rockefeller family, etc.
The federal government also controls the price of sugar which is why sugar is cheaper in most of the rest of the civilized world.
As a good (actually bad) example of when the generals didn't run the war is the Viet Nam debacle.
While oil makes the headlines there are lots of things happening concerning natural gas. Russia which sells natural gas to Western Europe through the state company Gazprom threatened the European Union to not mess with them on whatever they wanted to do (or else you can freeze next January). The Russian outfit noted that they have their eyes on doing business in United States and the Chinese Peoples Republic as well as residential gas service in Europe.
Not so long back the French government had some wells just up the West Fork above Creston. That was back before they got on the take with the U. N. "Oil for Food Program". Since then the Dutch & the Scandinavians have invested in local companies and fields.
Russell Hupp reported that the new well on the Howard Cooper place tested 110 MCF/day while the Villers well tested 215 MCF/day from the Berea Grit.
Betty Myers & granddaughters Ashley and Anna were visiting Dorine Parsons.
Tony and Roger Graham are in for turkey season. Tony and P. E. Graham motored to Grantsville the other morning for breakfast.
Mr. & Mrs. Ira J. Lynch, Sr., had an Easter Sunday get together. They had a yummy dinner and the kids hunted Easter eggs. Those
attending were Mr. & Mrs. Ira J. Lynch, Sr., Papaw Grim, Jim, Carol, Luke, Levi Lynch, Tim Lynch, Stephen Settle and Connie Duffield, Tara, Hoss, Dakota, Brittani, and Jacob Donley, Denver and Tammy Mcfarland.
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