A pretty perfect day

Yesterday turned out to be super, weather-wise, and super event-wise as well. We could have had a better turnout, but WV's future Senator made quite a splash, both on the train trip to Hinton and once she got to town.

For those of you who don't know, Hinton used to be a railroad town. My husband remembers the railroad heydays here, and his mother remembers taking trips to Washington, DC, on trains pulled by steam engines. Hinton still has a depot and trains run through here all the time, mostly carrying coal. Passenger trains come and go only a couple times a week.

Hinton's Railroad Days are two weekends celebrating the town's railroad heritage. A passenger train arrives both days of both weekends, from Huntington, WV, with passengers from West Virginia and several surrounding states. We meet a lot of folks from Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

Natalie Tennant rode the train into town, but left by car for another campaign event in Beckley, just north of Hinton. She was here for a good three hours, giving her stump speech at Democratic Headquarters and then meeting and greeting folks in the downtown area with a group of supporters.

Granted, people visiting Democratic headquarters are going to be like-minded, but we were pleased at how much support Natalie has here in southern West Virginia. Especially when you read stories like this one, which links our southern counties to the rest of the red-state South.

Today is the last day of this year's event. The next year will be a busy one as we work to elect Natalie Tennant to the seat Jay Rockefeller will be vacating. We here in Summers County also will be working to keep Third District Congressman Rahall in Congress, as he faces a tough challenger next year.

Yes, it seems like campaigning is 24/7/365, thanks to cable news and the internets. But legislators clearly can "accomplish" something – they managed to shut down the government entirely for nearly three weeks. I'm not willing to put anyone back in office who voted for that lame-brained, damaging and wasteful scheme.

I hope you're not either.