A Serious Matter

A lot of people who live here don't know what a wonderful place Bracken County is.  Of course, as always, it's the people who character a place.  In Bracken, you can paint a description of the folks there with a broad brush:  They work hard.  They buy what they need, take care of it, wear it out and buy another.  They pay their bills on time.  They save their money.  They hold their friends in high regard and seem willing always to extend a helping hand.  I never met a frivolous person in Bracken County.  In short, what you see is what you get, and what you see looks really good on the inside!

Not very long ago, a house lying fairly close to the North Fork of the Licking River burned in the middle of the night.  The owners, a couple residing there, barely escaped.  Neil Brumley and his second wife, Linda, had built the house just a very few years before the fire and designed it to their completely liking.  Earlier, Neil had lost his first wife after a long and happy marriage.  He is a farmer and also works in town at a Brooksville grocery.  He's the meatcutter.  He walks with a slight limp and is a Republican, the magistrate for his magisterial district of the county. There may not be a more popular person living in Bracken County today.  Neil is always ready with a broad smile and a twinkle in his eye, and when he's talking to you, you get the impression that you are the most important person in his life.

The Fiscal Court of Bracken County is made up differently from the Mason County Fiscal Court.  Here, we elect three Commissioner and they all run county-wide.  In Bracken (and in many other Kentucky counties), the county is divided into districts and each district elects a magistrate to the fiscal court.  Neil Brumley has represented the Milford District for a long, long time.  Altogether, there are seven or eight commissioners, I think, though I'm not sure about the number.  The Bracken Fiscal Court seems to address the weightier governmental issues in the county.

If you ask most people in Bracken County what they believe the county's greatest need is, almost to a man they will tell you jobs.  There are, of course, some service jobs in Brooksville and Clopay Corp. employs a number of people in Augusta.  Other than those, and seasonal farm labor, there aren't many jobs to be had.  So, a lot of people drive to Northern Kentucky or Cincinnati to work.  Like any other area, most folks would prefer to work closer to home, if good jobs were available.

For several years, the Fiscal Court has been considering the issue of county-wide zoning.  There have been meetings on top of meetings, and the closer the Court came to addressing the issue, the hotter it became on both sides.  As a rule, country people (and a lot of town peole) don't like zoning because it restricts what one can do with his property.   Nonetheless, zoning is an incident of modern life everywhere, and it is the conventional wisdom that Bracken County will never attract outside investment in plant and equipment without it.

On the first reading of the zoning ordinance, the magistrates divided evenly until Neil Brumley cast his vote in favor.  I suspect Neil didn't really like the idea very well, but he probably was convinced that without it, there could be no new factory in the Bracken County Industrial Park, no matter what the incentives.  Whatever else might be said, it had to be a hard matter for him to decide.

That night, Neil Brumley's home burned and with it, all of his and Linda' possessions, things which may have had significant monetary value, but undoubtedly things which are irreplaceable.  The FBI and the State Police, finding accelerant among the ashes at the home site, declared the fire to be arson.  No arrests have been made, although as is often the case, authorities probably know who did it;  they just don't yet have enough proof to take the case to the Grand Jury.

William Faulkner, famed Mississippi author, wrote a short story called The Barn Burner. It is a tale of a person or people who burn other people's property to settle differences, to settle scores.   Faulkner's acclaim probably arises most from his uncanny ability to shine a light on the souls of his characters, illuminating their most basic framework and revealing in clear and compelling style their shortcomings.  The barnburner character was the lowest of the low, because he is a coward and lacks the backbone to face his opponent.  Instead, he sneaks under cover of darkness, does his spitework and pathetically slips off into the night back to his lair, there reveling in his "victory."   

This is exactly what happened in Bracken County.  A man, simple yet strong, does what he believes to be best, and another man, a coward, cringing under the daylight, slithers after dark to where he can hurt the first man, and then slips away, steals away without ever summoning the courage to confront him.

Arson is a very serious matter.  Bracken County will want a serious penalty imposed when the offender is caught. Indeed, a serious penalty is absolutely apapropriate and called for.