The Einstein of Stupid

I’m right now on the banks of the Ohio River, walking a trail I hacked with a machete as a child that has since been exploited by every hillbilly in the tri-state area into a two lane dirt road. I did it to get to the ruins of a abandoned town called East Steubenville, used to be ruins, but they are almost completely gone now, the maze of roads here more or less follow my pathways, though its enlarged now in some awkward spots.

I was walking down my ravine path, that used to require a rope to descend (now a steep road) and a red Toyota, rusted through, came leaping over the edge in a free fall, landing right behind me. I got out if the way just in time, and saw a bunch of kids in their late teens in it, heavily overweight, and a gas can in the back rusted through the top.

I get down to the river a few minutes later, in the maze in the thickets, and see them completely submerged one tire into the muddy shore of the river.

Idiot kept trying to drive it, the wheel completely embedded in the muck. I started taking pictures, and they got defensive, and I shrugged my shoulders and continued snapping away.

Finally one tried a wooden board, but board snapped. After a while, I suggested a counterweight, butting all of us in the far corner of the truck. I ended up in the far corner, and realized if this was successful, wed be in the river if he couldn’t stop in time reversing, so told the fattest of them to switch positions, as I didn’t want him plus a truck on me if we did go in.

Truck didn’t come out, and the idiot kept digging deeper, and we were screaming at him to stop.

He said proudly, once they all started taking pictures themselves, he had made a hole there yesterday and wanted to show his friends. He nearly got stuck yesterday, and said to himself “hey, I should gather my peers together and do it with them tomorrow”, and did… just that, getting stuck. And now, he is both proud and upset he is stuck.

Fat chicks were camping nearby, and offered to get a chain and tow him. I said it was a bad idea, as everything was muddy and you’ll get stuck, but her friend already got the car before she made the suggestion, and was driving through muck. I didn’t see no rope, but didn’t want to see it happened, and said I was going, and just go get a shovel tomorrow and dig it out. I told the girl who made the suggestion the boy was the Einstein of stupid, a fucking genius when it comes to being a idiot.

When I left, I heard the girl in the car screaming and cursing. I didn’t look back. Long walk home awaits me.

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time in woods like that. We had a winch and must have pulled hundreds of idiots out of holes.

I just read the wikipedia page for east stubenville, and it said that some person named Zach Clayton or something was the king of east stubenville. So I edited it to say that Turd Ferguson was the king. Then I took a screenshot, then I got a message from some wiki nerd telling me that my contribution wasn’t helpful. So they took it away and they didn’t even add back the other dude who was supposed to be king. Anyway, here’s that screenshot.

On another note. Driving through West Virginia sucks. There are speed traps the whole way man. Isn’t the speed limit 55 statewide? And aren’t radar detectors illegal there? I was making this crazy zig zagging trip once where I bounced all over the place, and I ended up in a place called “Grundy” Virginia, which is close to the WV border. Then I had to go from there to New Jersey, so I was headed toward PA, on what I think might have been highway 11 or something, I’d have to look at a map to remember…the one that eventually leads to 78 in PA. Long story short, it was hell. Some of those places are so far out that it’s just scary. Like old towns where the coal mines have dried up but some people still live there all inbred and shit. The whole time I was thinking, “people say Alabama is full of inbred kooks…it’s got nothing on this place”. Then on the way back after I did what I had to do in NJ, I was stopping at a ski resort in WV…a place called Skyline. Dude I have to tell you, the girl I was with, her sister was dating this dude who’s dad was a surgeon, and he’d lost a malpractice case and so couldn’t practice in Alabama anymore, so he’d moved to Virginia or someplace around there to open up a new practice. In the meantime, he went ahead and bought a house at this resort. Like of all the houses there, at the very top of the highest peak there were only 3 or 4, and no one told me we were staying all the way up there in the superfly ski mansion section, and sometimes it’s so rugged and snowy getting there that you have to take a helicopter, and the shit was huge like 6 or 7 bedrooms and pool tables and all kinds of shit. Hot tubs on the deck at the top of the mountain overlooking several lesser ski resorts. I have to say that I was pretty impressed with it. Got to stay there for free and munch out at their little restaurant at the bottom of the hill. Good times. So West Virginia…it can be scary and remote like the kind of place that Stephen King writes about, or it can be amazing. But no matter where you are, the cops, the speed limit, and the whole no radar detector thing suck.

Wait I just remembered that Nick Saban is from there. So points for that.

I used to go four-wheelin’ all the time when I had my Jeep Cherokee Pioneer. Maybe I got a little country in me. Maybe I do know the lyrics: old black water, keep on rollin’, Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me. And what if I can plow a field all day long, or catch catfish from dusk till dawn? Yeah I used to go frog gigging when I was a youngin’. So what? You gotta problem with that, yankee boy? You keep thinking that, and I’ll drop some Bertrand Russell on your ass.

Anyway, I got stuck one time so bad I had to call a tow truck company to come pull me out. When the tow truck came, it got stuck. I had already paid them $150, so they couldn’t just bail on me. They ended up bringing in the personal truck of one of the company owners. It was a old Ford pick-up with some kind of custom, all wheel drive modification. The thing was a monster, submerged half way in mud water and still it pulled me out with no problem.

I learned a lot that day about off road driving, as well as the limits of my Jeep.

Drove through West Virginia one time; all I remember was seeing that mountain side before you get to the turn pike that was dotted with a sea of trailers. The whole side of the mountain was covered with them. A web of clothes lines connected all the lots, and the lots with the double-wide trailers were the nicest. They had that fake, plastic brick facade around the foundation. The other ones didn’t have anything.

Now explain this to me. When you cross into Virginia on the interstate, you start seeing signs that say ‘speed enforced by aircraft’. How the fuck is that done? And wouldn’t that be rather expensive for tax payers?

I don’t believe it. I think they’re bluffing. I’ve never seen any planes flying around over the road.

They also have signs in some places that say 25k fine for littering plus points on your license.

That is cool.

It came flying over your head??
I once saw a car in mid air too, sometimes it happens.

In the meme age every fail is a win.
(Or at least documentation of a failure or otherwise great stupidity turns it into a profitable possession which can be hoarded.)

Your intervention was not helpful to them at all, was it?

I failed on the counterweight leverage idea, I fully admit that.

There is no community in East Steubenville except for a few hobos who still haven’t discovered the rooms cut into the hillside yet (people dug and concreted cellars, hobos never notice and pop up tents). A solar panel, cheap wood door, a little IKEA, and they are good to go, but fucking no, they gotta have their tents and the heat and the rain, even though amazing shelter is right there, unclaimed. Slap a lock on it, put a sign saying it belongs to the Department of Teansportation, Sewage and Public Works Division. No cop will ever bother it.

No Smears, the Monarchy lies North of Weirton, not just south (East Steubenville). Its called King’s Creek. The King of the Gypsies set his capital there, and died a century back, and the gypsie hoards moved on. Prior to that, the creek system built all the cannonballs to bomb Ontario during the war of 1812, which is ironic, given its very, very close to where Canada was born during the massacre that started Lord Dunmore"s War.

If you hold up your hand, and give yourself a middle finger, with your thumb out, it fairly accurately gives you a map of the state. I live in the top most knuckle of the middle finger flipping you off.

If your ever here and ask for directions, people will walk up to you smiling, flipping you off while pointing at the hand flipping you off, saying “Hey Sweety, you are here.” A drill Sargent from another unit and I shocked everyone in two platoons once when I was in basic training and someone pointed out to him I was from WV too, and we started flipping one another off smiling, pointing to different parts of our hands. It was like every rule in the universe was just simultaneously violated, everyone was in shock.

As to Zoots… the population on the border of our state always reflects the population on the OTHERSIDE of the state, they move here because of lower tax rates. My area is people from Pittsburgh PA, who couldn’t afford land in Pittsburgh, so they commute. In your area you passed through, it was displaced white trash from Virginia moving to West Virginia. You’ll find Mennonites kicked out of Amish communities in Ohio, not wanting to be strict Amish anymore, move across the river to cheaper West Virginia setting up colonies (All Mennonites are ex-Amish who said fuck it, we want cellphones).

We only have a few core cities, not by a border. They are lame. My city was culturally part of Pittsburgh since its inception, the Pittsburgh/Virginia border dispute ended up with Virginia keeping a tiny, tiny sliver of land of its former territory. Here it is 3 miles wide. I used to jog from Ohio, into West Virginia, and then into PA in under a hour, hills included.

So our level of inbreeding is parallel to what you would expect from Baltimore, Pittsburgh, to Columbus Ohio. Out population moved East to West along that cooridor. Only part of “The South” above the Mason Dixon line, its pretty far south of us actually, I can reach Lake Erie in almost the same time as the Mason Dixon line, opposite directions.

I don’t know why getting stuck in a hole is fun, or making one. I was heading down to the river to write and reflect, and came across a fat fuck incest breeding encampment. It wasn’t people from this state, the truck was too rusted, wouldn’t pass inspection.

I’m just getting tired of everyone using stuff I built or made and turning it into something grotesque. That area was once really pretty and peaceful. Something I hacked with my bare hands, only I went to.

I, in a most frustrated state, after driving down winding roads and over mountains and shit and feeling like I was getting nowhere finally came on a place that seemed to have a few people living there. I saw a pizza hut, and I stopped and went inside and asked, “how the fuck do I get to an interstate?” and they all laughed at me and said keep going the way I was going. It felt like it took a year.

No shit, the entire state straddles a mountain range. Its hard to do most anything here, as it involves digging out entire hillsides to build. The swiss had forever to do this.

Its not too different along the entire Appalachian Mountain range. Where I live, multiple intersections hit, I can be in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Columbus under two hours. NY, Toronto, or Washington DC in a few more hours.

I Google Alabama, this is what I find:

However, for where I was born, San Andreas, California, I find… gang warfare…

wait, not a good analogy. Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas

Ummmm…

I’ve never seen anything like that in Alabama.