More than a decade and some change back there was an acronym going around these parts. It was used by some officials to describe certain locals, a good number of them native to Richmond Hill, who frequently made their displeasure with growth known by fussing about everything and anything that looked like new development.
The acronym was CAVE, and it was short for Citizens Against Virtually Everything. I suspect that acronym wasn’t original to here, but it fit like a glove.
These days it seems there’s a new rumbustious crop of CAVE – made up primarily of residents who weren’t even here when the first crop of CAVE were busily protesting the arrival of this second and third generation of CAVE. Such is the circle of life, you see. Somebody was always here before you. And will come after.
The big difference between then and now is social media community pages, which makes squeaky wheels 1,000 times squeakier and 100,000 times more annoying, and makes a weekly newspaper hack editor without a staff’s job much harder to figure out.
That said, I was once a sort of junior CAVE member myself, since I saw my own neighborhood in South Effingham ruint by growth that brought with it traffic, litter, noise, loud transplant neighbors and, finally, warehouses and trucks and more traffic, litter, noise, etc. And I get to pay more in taxes for the privilege of staying put in my wife’s house.
After all that, I am no longer among the CAVE, and am now simply worn out. And glad, I suppose, I’ll soon be voluntarily out to pasture, if there is any pasture left to be out in. If there is, I plan on being a nudist.
Now, pretend this is your email SPAM filter: Dear Fat Pudgy Rich sweaty American overeater in Georgia with hot tub and pickup and movie star girlfriend your wife does not yet know about: I am to make you an offer you will not want to refuse.
My name is not important at moment. Just know I’m a man of noble family, and a daring and ruthless international soldier of fortune who many years in the past liberated the small foreign country of Libertania and overthrew the evil left-handed Dictator For Life, His Eminence Colonel-General Elvis Smythe Owlsley Jr.
As I went about my important and dangerous business of freeing all the many oppressed peoples of Libertania, I won the trust of the renowned former Secretary of the Interior, Madame B. She, thanks to my ingenuity and portable rocket launcher, put in my hands the details of the whereabouts of the country’s $3.49 billion in Gold BULLION reserves hid in small bills behind a Shell gas station in Libertania’s capitol city, Ohiostanistan.
As I have verified, the billions of bullion has been there for many years now, in proper denominations, waiting for the right moment. That moment is now.
It is the hope of the Secretary and myself, dear sir or madam, you will help us to save this $3.49 billion in golden bullions from the wrong fists by helping us store it in your interest-bearing checking bank savings account, which shall hide it from an international Cartel of Middle Eastern terrorists with ties to Taliban and ISIS operatives who wish to be up to no good with the funds.
We, of course, are willing to recompense you for your part in this adventure in getting the money out of Ohiostanistan and into the United States, where we plan on opening up upscale elite cookery schools to teach how to pair mouth watering locally caught shrimps with creamy instant grits, and are willing to share the $3.49 BILLION with you 50-50.
Your share would then be more than $1.7 billion bullions, minus the usual transactions fees one expects to pay all the time when dealing with such enormous sums of free money.
As a token of your interest, please send details regarding your name, social security number, bank account routing numbers and credit cards and employment history, so that we may convince the nuns watching over the hiding place that we have found an honorable American to help us safely relocate the $3.49 billion bullions.
Your haste will be appreciated, as will your understanding we rely on your confidentiality. Reply soonest this email address. It is constantly monitored by trusted and fully licensed associates from our satellite real estate offices in Lessor Bulan Gatong. Application fee is $30,000 USD.
Your friend, The Honorable Pickleford Symon, Eighth Eddie of Munster.