I was at the important meeting concerning tolls for our Bayview-Aurora ferry | Eastern North Carolina Now

    I was at the important meeting concerning tolls for our Bayview-Aurora ferry

    It was a great meeting with a great discovery = we get to direct our own show here. The DOT has changed it's whole approach. No longer are they wanting to cram things down our throats.

    The young man representing the DOT---and trying to explain---did his best, but our minds were still thinking: "Those @#$% beaurocrats in Raleigh are still trying to ram it to us--like it or not." No longer is that true---on this issue anyway!!!

    Part of the communication problem at the meeting was gov-speak confusion.

    We have a thing called MPO/RPO which is now in charge on a local level. For the life of me,,,I cain't find no dad-burned translation of MPO/RPO in the papers. Whut hit means is: the "Mid East RPO" is in control of the Bayview-Aurora ferry.

    They can simply stay quiet and nothing is changed. They can refuse to follow any "orders" from the DOT --- and they must stick it where the sun don't shine. The only way they can mess with my ferry is IF the MPO/RPO decides to request it.

    Now---"Hain't thet simpler," as the old farmer says.

    Why it takes a fancy Power Point presentation to confuse / gov-speak abbreviations to further confuse / AND leave us thinking it was the same as last time is --- well, "jest stupit." Proof positive that----a camel is a beautiful horse----designed by a gov'ment committee."

    My old SC Democrat farmer grandaddy in upstate SC, would have said just that at Cousin Leonard's country store. He and his buddies tried to figure out who was putting the screws into whom before starting the plowing for the day They were fighting the Great Depression---on top of bowl weevils and weeds in red clay---on hillsides gullied out---before the Soil Conservation Service (FDR works project, by the way) taught them to properly terrace those hills. If grandaddy had had some of this nice soft fertile Beaufort County black dirt---he woulda thought he had landed in heaven while still alive!!!

    Anyhow---quit the worry and sign carrying. We had such valid arguments the last time around. It did no good when DOT came calling with a bettering ram.

    Only a Democratic female Governor from New Bern could put a stop to the blood flow from behind. Now that the new male Republican Governor from Ccharlotte is in place----we know it would be a cold day in Hell when another veto saved us from the richer and more greedy other places in NC.

    Instead of having to argue on deaf ears --- by golly, the MPO/RPO whatever the heck group of sane local folks has the case well in hand. Already, the members present (3 I believe) were shaking their heads with a smile like: Gottcha now suckers--no more stealing my pigs. Thou aren't standing where I am about to shoot!!!"

    Not to be too cute---but I think I know where the Dix Hill folks went upon having to leave = right over to the Legislative Center in downtown Raleigh. They were likely turned down as advisors to the present beaurocrats. As one said to the truck driver needing to lower tire pressure to get under the nearby bridge: "I may be dumb, but I ain't stupid enough to tear up that bridge for your big truck to get under it!!!"

    Raleigh legislators might be well-advised to look up those "crazies" now---they just "might" know something about common sense.