{"id":933,"date":"2009-07-30T01:08:16","date_gmt":"2009-07-30T01:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=371"},"modified":"2009-07-30T01:08:16","modified_gmt":"2009-07-30T01:08:16","slug":"371","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=933","title":{"rendered":"Softball with Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catching up on \u00a0some of our recent \u00a0backroads campaigning…<\/em> \u00a0 Just outside Huntington, West Virginia, I interviewed Frank Holcomb from Point Pleasant in Mason County. \u00a0 He is a retired state trooper. \u00a0 Several years prior, he had answered a domestic violence call and was shot in the leg. \u00a0 He became disabled because of the injury and had to retire early. \u00a0 Officer Holcomb has a wife, two young children and is a member of New Hope Bible Baptist Church. \u00a0 We talked about how society was becoming more violent as a whole and I said it was my belief those who put themselves in harm’s way day in and day out should be compensated accordingly… While in Huntington, West Virginia, we spent time \u00a0on the Marshall University campus. \u00a0 On Saturday Nov. 14, 1970, the Marshall University football team and staff (75 people in all) crashed just before reaching the Tri-State Airport runway while returning from a game. \u00a0 Everyone was killed… \u00a0 While in Huntington, we also talked with Grattan Gannon \u00a0. \u00a0 His wife inherited the “Hatfield Cemetery.” \u00a0 That’s right, the ‘Hatfield’ of Hatfield’s and McCoy’s fame. \u00a0 We were told there’s not much fuedin’ going on these days. \u00a0 In fact, the families get together for an annual softball game each year now. \u00a0 After hearing this, I couldn’t help but ruminate that maybe that’s the answer to a lot of these current international conflicts (with Iran, North Korea…). \u00a0 Maybe we should all get together for some softball games. \u00a0 (And some actually intimate I’m weak on foreign policy. \u00a0 Ha!)<\/em> \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 Gratten is an absolutely fabulous story teller, the Garrison Keillor of Appalachia, if you will. \u00a0 And, in ‘down home’ fashion, he \u00a0told us \u00a0that at one of the funerals at the cemetery, a rather cantancerous Hatfield was on his way to his burial. \u00a0 He was in a coffin on the back of a pick-up truck. \u00a0 The cemetery is at the top of a rather steep hill and as the pick-up was climbing it, the coffin slid off and created quite a ruckus. \u00a0 “See, even dead I knew Jeb was still going to mess this thing up,” one mourner (sort of) was heard to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catching up on \u00a0some of our recent \u00a0backroads campaigning… \u00a0 Just outside Huntington, West Virginia, I interviewed Frank Holcomb from Point Pleasant in Mason County. \u00a0 He is a retired state trooper. \u00a0 Several years prior, he had answered a …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}