Huntington and Hollywood

It was announced today that Huntington, WV is the ‘Fattest Town in America.’ A study concluded that the fine citizens of this great American city eat too many hot dogs, doughnuts and fried chicken. That’s my kind of town. The article informs us that Huntington’s populous has a high rate of diabetes and protested loudly when laws were instituted banning smoking in bars and restaurants. They go to work in pre-dawn darkness, labor 200 hundred feet underground and come up from the pit at the end of the day as the sun is setting - all the while pulling coal from the earth – the natural resource that enables you to be warm in the winter and receive most of the goods from manufacturers that utilize that coal to run their plants. Their clothes are filthy, their incomes modest. When they finally arrive home they open the newspaper and read that some guy has won an Academy Award and The Nobel Prize for pointing his arrogant and chastising finger at their livelihood. The television news predicts that the coal industry will be annihilated by the incoming administration.  They are called hillbillies, crackers and white trash - a term as egregious as any in our society.  Is it any wonder then, why the fine citizens of Huntington may turn to a plateful of pork and sauerkraut, 6 beers and a pint of ice cream for comfort?  And so they get fat.  In fact, they become the fattest town in America - adding another scathing fact to the town's resume'.  You see, we like skinny people in this country; you know, like the ones in Hollywood; you know, like the ones that awarded Big Al The Oscar; you know, the brilliant, beautiful, skinny ones - too skinny, sick skinny, rehab skinny, does-this-dress-make-my-ass-look-big skinny, never-worked-a-day-in-my-life-that-contributed-to-the-welfare-of-society skinny. Huntington or Hollywood?  Who are your people?  Well, let me put it this way:  ‘I'll have two over easy, hash browns, biscuits with sausage gravy, coffee, a piece of pie and an ashtray, please.’