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Recently I was talking to a friend who also struggled
through the 1980s in a backwater mountain town. We remarked
upon the recent boom,
and he observed that
Someday, believe it or not, we will look back on the 80s
-- the days when dogs slept in the street and we lived in
nowhere -- with fond nostalgia.
That day may have already arrived. It was a lot easier to handle gossip about which county commissioner might be having an affair with which road clerk than it is to cope with current town talk.
For instance, Salida has attracted one Dwight Finney,
who claims show-business connections. He recently appeared
on the Fox Network's Rikki Lake talk show in a segment
called Prostitutes and Proud of it.
It would be more than surprising to learn that a town of 5,000 could support any male prostitutes -- the more common variety pretty well vanished here in the early 1950s when the railroad began to abandon the region -- but on the other hand, we see all sorts of new enterprises lately.
Or perhaps he and his wife just pretended so that they could get a free trip to New York. There's talk of that, too, although the Rikki Lake show insists that all its participants are authentic.
That's entertainment. Another sign of increasing sophistication is that we now have our very own pre-school sex scandal resulting from lurid reports by a four-year-old.
Naturally, these reports are not sustained by any sort
of evidence, but there's a large industry which needs
bizarre allegations in order to stay in business, and it
was doubtless our turn to sacrifice some reputations and
tax dollars so that a few believe the children
therapists can maintain their lifestyles.
We've also got a recall campaign against the school board, unopposed in last November's election, which should tell you something.
However, the superintendent did not renew one coach's contract, and the school board backed the action.
Now, the school district could announce that it was eliminating all mathematics classes, and perhaps three people -- probably teachers concerned about their jobs -- would show up at the meeting.
But if they do anything concerning sports, then large crowds materialize. I recall seeing upward of 50 people at a meeting once when the board proposed to eliminate the girls' gymnastics program because very few girls went out for the sport, and the money might be better spent elsewhere.
Big crowd at the meeting, and the board agreed to give the program a one-year reprieve; it would continue if more girls participated.
Interest in the issue evaporated before the meeting adjourned, until a year later, when the board noted that participation was still far too low to justify the cost of the program. Then, of course, the crowd was back.
But this passionate interest in high-school sports is the usual small-town stuff, and it's almost refreshing when you compare it to male prostitution and the invasion of the believe-the-children therapists.
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