Do you hear that? How could you not? The green explosion has weedeaters working overtime.
It's hard to believe there was snow on the ground just a couple of weeks ago, a freeze warning just last week. With mid- to high-80s every day this week, the long and confounding winter has been quickly forgotten.
Especially when you step outside and every direction you cast your eyes (besides maybe straight up) reveal more greens than can be named.
Just bring on the tourists...if your town is into that kind of thing. Several towns in our region have grabbed that ball and are running full speed ahead. Not my town. We had the ball once, but a mayor and city council punted it away.
The folks Elkhorn City has elected in the last 8 years must own property in Virginia because we've run most of our visitors across the state line. I guess that's not a problem as long as your cousins and a preacher are happy.
LIke the mayor of Elkhorn City who has managed to undo just about everything worthwhile the previous mayors left us with, the fraud sitting in the Oval Office is getting really close to disassembling everything Obama left behind.
Now that he's unraveled the Iran nuclear deal, there's very little left that Obama accomplished. But there is one thing and it's just a matter of time.
The most important thing he who cannot be named left behind was a far better economy than the one he walked into. It's the economy that saved the U.S. auto industry, the one that cut unemployment rates in half adding well over 11,000,000 jobs, and the one that increased the value of the stock market 210%.
Some of you might have noticed gas prices slowly increasing over the last several months. The national average for regular unleaded gas in January of 2017 was $2.37 a gallon. The latest average I could find, taken about 2 weeks ago, is $2.99 per gallon.
Granted, that isn't nearly has high as prices hit during the last Bush regime, but it's not a trend that bodes well. Increasing sanctions on Iran will lead to higher prices on crude oil which means more dollars to fill up your work truck.
Rising gas prices are never a sign of a strong and stable economy. Add the recent tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-rich, basically taking billions out of the economy, and the signs of economic distress are increasing.
But conservative economists and talking heads won't tell you that. They've been riding the voodoo economic horse nearly 40 years and show no signs of dismounting.
They might as well have been telling you the tooth fairy will leave your next mortgage payment if you'll just leave one more tooth. That might work for a while, but it gets pretty hard to eat once you're out of teeth.
But it's good to know there are natural things you can count on. The greening comes every May and the economic meltdown after Republicans get control soon enough.
Those are two things you can bank on.