Good Parenting Can Overcome Bad Influences

Most people try to avoid Blacksburg, Virginia. My sister Carrie, who is about to unleash a yard monkey from her womb, heard there was a party in Blacksburg and went to check it out. It turns out they call the party Virginia Tech. She liked the party and stayed. Eventually she graduated with a "Kollej Digree." There are two ways to get a degree at Virginia Tech. One is to stay at the party long enough that you "age out." The other way is to drive around campus with an open window. Someone is bound to throw a diploma into your car. You just don't know what the degree will be in. Sometimes you have to drive around a good twenty minutes before you get a diploma in something you like. I would never drive around Va. Tech with my window open because once you have a degree from that school it is difficult to dis-own. Some employer will find out and, after that, welfare is your only option.

My other sister, Helen, actually LIVES in Blacksburg. No one understands it. She is smart enough to know better. She has a degree in Criminal Justice, which is good because she has two kids. Every parent with two or more kids should have a degree in Criminal Justice. Or at least a degree in Criminal because after a while justice is no longer a priority. Her kids are very bright. You would never know that they live in Blacksburg. To spend time with them you would swear that they must be from someplace like Charlottesville or another reputable university town. They will, I believe, be the exception to the Blacksburgian Rule. They will run major corporations and the only trailer they will ever know is the movie preview kind. This is because my sister, Helen, will not allow them to behave as if they are from Blacksburg.

I think that the problem with Blacksburg is that the university mascot is a Hokie. For those of you that are not true believers in the World Wrestling Federation - a hokie is a castrated turkey. I am not making this up. Turkeys are already harmless dumb birds. But to do that to such a pitiful animal is just plain mean. At Va. Tech football games they play a loud turky gobble to scare the opponents. In the middle of the game you suddenly hear a high pitched, fast paced, "GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE." At this point the opposing team wets themselves - - from laughter. I think that the recorded turkey gobble would be more fear inducing if it had a proper amount of testosterone in its system.

My brother, The Terminator, went to Radford University. I don't think Radford has a mascot. If it did it, they would be the Radford Comatose. Everyone is afraid of comas. But, being Radford, someone would spell coma, c-o-m-m-a. That would pretty much end it. No one is afraid of a comma. Unless they had a really bad language arts experience.

This brings us to the crux of the problem. Universities pick mascots that instill fear. This means that the folks in Blacksburg are actually afraid of castrated turkeys. Now, I would think that turkeys would not necessarily be something to be anxious about, unless of course, the bird has revenge on its mind.

So Helen and her husband are raising two girls in this atmosphere. Her husband isn't afraid of turkeys because he is a hunter and shoots stuff with his gun. And I don't care how angry your average castrated turkey is, he can't stop a bullet. Maybe this is why Helen's kids are so smart. There is no fear in their household of vengeful turkeys on the prowl.

Hopefully her kids will go to a good college like THE University of Virginia. They can be Wahoos and carry small swords and wear really flashy hats with feathers. But in the meantime, they will have to work at overcoming their environment. And by all I can see, their parents have them on the right track.