What the World Needs Now is More Sock Monkeys
The State Journal reports on a new program at Tamarack where federal work training funds are diverted through the Tamarack Foundation to train West Virginians in the mountaim crafts that Tamarack sells, mostly to tourists on their way to or from Florida.I like the idea. It makes better use of the money than some of those federal work programs on which millions have been squandered..
What bothers me is a couple of paragraphs deep in the story. Sally Bushong, the executive director of the foundation, says that the goal is to train artisans who can produce the most popular sellers at Tamarack.
The product each student is being taught to create is one that is in high demand at Tamarack, she said.
Some examples include glass sun-catchers, metal hooks and homemade sock monkeys.
So it's clear that not only among West Virginians but among tourists who visit our fair state there's no accounting for taste.
Sock monkeys? The late great columnist L.T. Anderson, who despised Tamarack, would have had much to say about how West Virginia is apparently becoming the Sock Monkey State Thanks to Tamarack.
Raging Red has her Devil Duck. I'll be performing with The 1937 Flood at Tamarack on Father's Day. Maybe I'll buy a sock monkey and make him the mascot for this blog.
posted by Dave Peyton @ 10:15 AM
5 Comments:
LOL! Maybe Cece Bell needs to write another sequel for her "Sock Monkey" series called "Sock Monkey Goes to West Virginia: Help Is On The Way!"
Good idea, Hoyt, but do you think the Sock Monkey would run the state like a business? And would he do it for peanuts? (Sorry, it's the best I can do on a Friday afternoon.)
Sounds like a bunch of "Monkey Business" to me...
Dave:
Why don't you sell Flood CDs online?
It is great music folks. Might even be worth a trip to Beckley to see those old coots play music from their teeny bopper years :-)
Don:
We sell them online at
http://www.1937flood.com
When you get there, click on BUY US.
Like any good southern West Virginian, we're for sale.
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