The Welcome Wagon
September 26th, 2007 by Bill ColleyThis fellow telephoned my show the other day and attempted to silence me. The topic was Governor Ruth Ann’s foreign vacation under the guise of inspecting wind power, as if there wasn’t enough emanating from Dover and from talk radio shows. This man telephoned me and gave me the business. He instructed me I didn’t have the right to criticize the liberal beacon because I’m not from here.
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Less than 2 weeks ago I got my first check from WGMD. It’s when I noticed I had been squeezed for state taxes. Until then I was feeling great because of the cheaper gasoline prices you folks pay but I’m under no allusions that it costs money to operate a state government. Which is why I believe I have a say in how MY Governor spends what she takes from ME.Â
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Later that day another man told me off-air that his ancestors were the first people living on this peninsula and in his view the rest of us are all outsiders. Guess it’s all just a matter of perspective. It can also be said that the fellow with the aboriginal ancestry objects to Ruth Ann’s European tour.Â
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A message for the first caller would be along the lines of “Thanks for the warm welcomeâ€. Maybe I’ll move to Maryland and just sweep in and collect a check and buy my groceries elsewhere.Â
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Oh, and the last I looked, I’m an American citizen. While I may originate in the liberal, sneering and condescending north I come from some pretty good folk. Not far from where I was born is the gravesite of a Civil War Union Colonel. A man who kept a dairy of his experiences at Andersonville Prison and preserved it for posterity. I was also born a couple of miles from where Charles Ingalls was born. He was there a long time before me and while he didn’t have great success in life his daughter’s works are still read by children around the world. There was also a story I shared on the program earlier this week. The one about Marine Corporal Jason Dunham, a young man who grew up in Scio, New York.Â
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Scio isn’t Manhattan. There may be fewer than 1,000 people living there and the major industry is dairy farming. Pretty much like my hometown. Jason Dunham was an ordinary kid growing up with all sorts of aspirations, including the dream of being a Marine. Because he accomplished the goal some of his fellow Marines are still alive. They lived to share his story, how he threw himself on a live grenade to save his friends. Not long ago Jason Dunham was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.Â
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So the next time you hear somebody running down those people from somewhere else I hope you keep in mind that there are a great many Americans and some very great Americans who don’t come from Delaware. Not to besmirch the young people from here who put on the uniform but to remind you that these kinds of people from across the country ensure we can all speak our minds.Â
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Unlike Ruth Ann Minner the men and women in uniform have gone overseas for a much more important purpose.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
You made some valid points, Mr. Colley, and with WGMD being the neighbourhood station, very local and something akin to “family”, I’m sure the welcomes have been there and voiced. I don’t deny you a welcome at all but, as with the gentleman who…perhaps…is a Minner supporter…it can gall to hear someone very new to the area, someone perhaps who has never even been here before, offer a diatribe on who’s who and what’s what. It IS like family…not just here but anywhere one may find themselves for work or play. In a family we can talk about our own, decry an action, criticize a wrong word, argue, fight but let anyone else do it and it doesn’t sit well. We’re outsiders of ten years ago and dues have to be paid…like being here a bit longer than two weeks or a month.
You made a statement in this blog piece that likely galls others…because you have made it or similar in almost every piece you’ve posted, pertaining to “liberals”, “sneering” and “condescending”. In this particular post you equated those attributes to northerners but you have also equated them to your neighbours, some of your callers and, undoubtedly, commenters on the blog. Not hard to assume you are not a liberal but you have done, and you do sneer and condescend frequently. As you pointed out, you do certainly have that right…as any of us do…but being in the public ear you might as well resign yourself to taking flak for it, right or not. So we have liberals here in Sussex Co…and libertarians…and conservatives…and Neo-cons. Some of us may not like or agree with the politics of others around us or call in to radio shows but, hopefully, most of us have the good sense to know and appreciate that their politics are only a very small part of what they believe…not who they are. If it’s any consolation, however, you aren’t the only “local celebrity” guilty of the sneer and condescension. I bid you welcome but hope that, in time, you might be a little more magnanimous of your neighbours.
September 26th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Bill, it wasn’t too long ago that the only thing in Sussex Co. were chickens and Morons, and I’m sure the person who criticized you didn’t have wings. You have every right , and responsibility, as a citizen to expose outlandish spending by government officials. They serve you, not themselves. As far being not from here- if being a native is so great- why has most of the farmland been sold for development? Welcome to Delaware-
September 26th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I refer to the state I live in as the “Peoples Republic of Maryland” and as far as I know it has no tax that is lower than the corresponding tax in Delaware. I occasionally keep my eyes open for an opportunity to move a few miles north (or back to Virginia) for just that reason. Unfortunately the entire east coast is becoming inhospitable to people who believe in governments watching their spending.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:02 am
You’re right Bill, Anyone who doesn’t follow and or agree with this neo- conservative doctrine of trashing liberals should be spied on, threatened, tortured and then sent off to one of the several secret prisons. If that ‘liberal’ continues to spout off, the neo-conservative play book should include the recipe for Blackwater USA!
When Blackwater is done performing Iraqi genocide; they can be utilized to go after all those dissenting liberals with their high tech weaponry, art of sniping and kill training. Conservatives are the only Moral Party. The Christian RIGHT! It’s down ‘RIGHT’ funny!
September 28th, 2007 at 5:05 am
Bill
What the “real” locals are trying to tell you is this.
You can put a cat in the oven, but that don’t make it a biscuit.
I have only lived here since 1978 and I am still remided I am an outsider.
If your family did not come to Delaware with the first chicken under your arm, forget it.