A staffer for a West Virginia politician with an office in Washington, D.C. recently referred to Crystal Good, as a “poverty profiteer”. Crystal is a poet and a thinker. A West Virginia girl, born and raised, she has lived around the country, but now makes her home in West Virginia. For the record, I’ve never met Crystal and I doubt she has ever heard my name, except that we are Facebook friends through some mutual connections.

This politician’s assistant suggested she profited from poverty and liked that West Virginia is “last in everything.” Having read some of Crystal’s work, my impression is the exact opposite. She isn’t afraid to talk about poverty or the things that are wrong in West Virginia, but I’m fairly confident she would much prefer to see her friends, family and fellow West Virginians doing well. And it is hard to imagine anyone suggesting a poet is a profiteer. It is the rare poet who actually makes a profit.

In reality, this attempted shaming (which really backfired) was about coal. Having seen what coal mining does to miners and coal mining communities, Crystal had the nerve (gasp) to suggest that something that politician spouted off about the coal industry was propaganda.

My friend Daniel Boyd’s new graphic novel Carbon has been labeled “controversial” in a couple recent news reports because it dares to portray the coal industry negatively. For the record, coal MINERS are the heroes of the story. Just not the industry itself.

We refuse to have a real conversation about coal. Our “leaders” want to blame the president’s policies for coal’s decreasing market share because he is unpopular in this state. Automation and heavy machinery have drastically reduced the number of people who work in coal mines. This isn’t something that began with the latest president.  Those same “leaders” won’t put any thought into job retraining or education or a plan for what to do after coal.

There is a general election coming up and a lot of people are paying lip-service to coal and being “for” West Virginia jobs. I want to hear what they plan to do to move West Virginia into the 21^st century—we should already be there. How about business start ups? Or economic diversity?  What about making sure another “water crisis” doesn’t poison the drinking water? How about protecting the quality of life in West Virginia that makes people from outside the state want to move here?

In the news business, a truism is to “follow the money”. Donations to political campaigns are public record. Find out who is donating to particular candidates and then ask yourself why. What does that company or industry hope to gain from those donations?

Another truism from the newspaper business is that you don’t start a fight with a person who buys ink by the barrel. In the modern world where words are digital, rather than ink-based, I would say you don’t want to start a fight with someone (like Crystal or Danny), who uses words, not just for a living, but because they HAVE to..

I’ve lived in California and North Carolina and traveled to six of the seven continents on this globe. I’ve seen enormous cities and I’ve seen small towns. Now that I’m back in West Virginia, I’ve found myself in Pinch, a tiny community north and east of Charleston. And I like it.

This weekend is the Pinch Reunion. The reunion is the “longest running community reunion” in the nation. It has been going on continuously since 1902. According to the website, the Pinch Reunion began to “raise the educational, religious, and family standards of the community of Pinch.”

Pinch today reminds me of Cross Lanes when I was a child in the 70s. Back then, everyone knew everyone else and that was a good thing. In the evenings, especially in the summer, everyone would be outside working in the yard, or relaxing and playing games. My dad built us a badminton court in the backyard and kids came from all over the neighborhood to play. We also had a chilled water fountain in our basement that my dad drug in from somewhere. When it was hot outside and everyone was sweaty from playing, there was nothing better than the water coming out of that fountain.

Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of extra money, but we camped at state parks and went to a lot of local festivals to hear music while my parents square danced. Those of are some of my best childhood memories.

In general, it seems like we are all busier and probably aren’t quite as social as we used to be back during my childhood. I hear kids out in my neighborhood playing, but it is just the younger ones. The older kids have too many things to do or they are busy with their phones and other electronic devices.

And that is where the Pinch Reunion comes in…for me anyway. I’m not from this area, so it isn’t like I’m going to see anyone I know there, but for me the reunion is a chance to hear some good local music in a really fun location (the “wigwam” on the Reunion Grounds is one of the coolest venues I’ve ever seen) and maybe reconnect with my own past and childhood. I’ll probably drag my girls along, too, so they can get a taste of what I’m talking about…if I can get them to put their phones down.

I’ll be there. Will you?

You can find the Pinch Reunion Schedule at: http://pinchreunion.webs.com/.

In a couple days, it will be my birthday. Not a big one or one of the magic number days that end in 0. Just a birthday.

For some reason, I always get a little bit moody around my birthday, though. It’s not about getting older. As they say, it beats the alternative. And I’ve never been one to think back on high school as my “glory days”. I had fun in my teen years and I’ve had fun ever since. A lot of the time, when someone tries to talk to me about what we did “back in the day”, I don’t have a clue if they’re telling the truth or not. I’ve put those days behind me.

Musical Side note: Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” is not about what many people think it is about. Great song, but it’s really fairly depressing if you listen to the lyrics. It is about people thinking their best days are behind them. And don’t get me started on “Born in the USA” from that same album… I’ve always liked the Jimmy Buffet song “A Pirate Looks at 40” about a man who feels like an “over-40 victim of fate” but I’ve never identified with it personally.

No, I think my birthday-related moodiness has more to do with having a summer birthday. I was born in the summer of 1967, known at the time as the “Summer of Love”. In school, summer birthdays sort of got forgotten. My school friends were always on vacation or doing something else when my birthday rolled around so birthday parties were not that well attended. On top of that, my older brother’s birthday is the day after mine so we grew up sharing birthdays. (Okay, it’s possible I’m still harboring some issues from my childhood, “glory days” or not…)

If I were a numerologist, I would think of this as my lucky year. Normally there are three sevens in my birthday, but I’m 47 this year, so there is a fourth. Realistically, on our birthdays, we should be celebrating our mothers.  It is the anniversary of our arrival in the world, but we didn’t do all that much. I just showed up, after all. On this impending birthday, I say “happy birthday” to my mom. She is the one who was working so hard 47 years ago.

Frankly, I think my best days are still to come. As a character in a movie from my youth said “What’s behind me is not important!”

I may go buy a lottery ticket…with a lot of 7s in it..