THE FALL OF THE WILSON EMPIRE

By

Jimmy Joe Meeker

Originally published in The Wilson County Advocate, Vol. 1, No. 19, ©October 22, 1991 Donald W. Gillette

Enough already.

Those are the sentiments of 99% of Wilson County. We've had enough of the Road Superintendent. We've had enough of the busing problem, and we've had enough half-witted gibberish from county politicians to last into the next millennium.

Every resident of the county has bitched and moaned over these issues since they cropped up back in July. The problem is that nobody can do anything about any of these things. It's gone too far now to be fixed. The evil is here to stay and there is bad craziness in the air.

I was watching the Lebanon City Council last week, cursing Don Fox more out of habit than logic, when it came to me. The situation cannot get better. It can change, but it can't get better.

We all know what's going on. We know, in the deep recesses of our minds, that some cheap, dirty, little whores on the County Commission have been planing this last minute AT&T bus leasing scheme since July. We can't prove it and we don't know who is to blame…all we know is that something stinks and it ain't just the sewage treatment plant.

We know that there was full-scale fraud and abuse of the system when it came to naming a Road Superintendent. We know who did it and we know a little bit of the background, but we can't figure out the reason why. it's simply too devious for normal people to grasp.

We know someone stands to get very healthy from the private landfill deal that will come to pass very soon. But we don't quite understand the reason behind that, either.

Because all of this is beyond normal human comprehension. You have to be a slimeball to understand how a slimeball works.

It is almost genetically impossible for most people to believe that county government is, in fact, a den of thieves, fixers, felons, and thugs. We don't want to believe it. It goes against everything we've been taught about our way of life and the purpose of government. Oh, we can accept the fact that county government is composed of misfits and morons; being stupid is not against the law, but we don't want to believe that the people elected to watch out for us are actually criminally insane.

Getting the truth out of most of them would be like trying to steal meat from a pit bull. The only thing that's come out of the Wilson County Courthouse in the past ten years is bullshit.

This county eats dollar bills like they were popcorn and we have absolutely nothing to show for it. And if I followed my better instincts now, I'd toss this typewriter in the car, drive to the home of the nearest politician, and hurl the damned thing through his front window. Either that or drive down to the courthouse and toss a bag of live rats into the commission meeting.

Because that's the only thing they'll understand. Until somebody jolts the bastards down to their socks, things will not get better in Wilson County.

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