John Douglas

Nearly 30 years ago, we were walking up Washington Street when a Man-About-Town challenged us to name the presidents. The deal was this: We got a dollar for each president we named and we paid him $3 for one we forgot. Seems he'd pulled this on several people and usually ended up a winner, or at least coming close to breaking even. He obviously didn't know that we'd memorized the presidents as a boy.

At the time, Jimmy Carter – the 39th president – was Commander-in-Chief. We started to reel off the names and as our list got longer and reached into the thirties, the fellow lost his smile and dragged us over to the library. There, he made us write down the names and doublechecked them against the encyclopedia. (For young people: Before the internet, an encyclopedia was a big book that professed to collect the world's knowledge.)

Another article in this week's Morgan Messenger reports on a huge lawsuit in Roane County. The jury brought back a $404 million verdict against several natural gas companies. The class action suit claimed that the companies had shortchanged land owners on their gas royalties. The judge and jury agreed.

We reprinted the story because it is important statewide and because a number of local property owners are interested in the natural gas business, having been approached about gas leases in the past year. The lawsuit should be a warning that you need to go into this business with your eyes wide open.

Last year, we wrote an editorial about the late Darcy MacLachlan, who left his estate to be split between the Berkeley Springs High School band and youth programs put on by the Berkeley Springs American Legion.

Last week, the Morgan County School Board was told that the estate has been settled and $116,000 will go to the band and $116,000 to the Legion's youth programs.

There's a move afoot in Charleston to force drug manufacturers to report how much they spend on consumer advertising and gifts to doctors. We certainly think that's a good idea.

You don't have to watch much TV these days to see commercials for prescription drugs. Half the time you can't even tell what the drug is supposed to treat, though the ads show lots of smiling people who are dancing and having a fine time, all their ills having magically disappeared. And, you wonder why so many people, particularly young ones, mistakenly think drugs will make them happier!

Congratulations to Senator Clark Barnes for at least getting the State Senate to discuss Governor Manchin's "Open For Business" slogan on state welcome signs.

Barnes was one of the leaders in pushing a Republican resolution to replace the sleazy "Open for Business" with the proud slogan, "Wild, Wonderful West Virginia."

Design ideas for a new Morgan County Courthouse will be presented to the public in a month or so, County Commission President Glen Stotler told the crowd at last week's meeting to gather input about a replacement courthouse.

About 70 people attended the January 23 session at Berkeley Springs High School auditorium. The meeting gave citizens a chance to meet Architect Tom Potts, hear what's been done so far and offer ideas.

The West Virginia Legislature is again considering whether English should be the official state language. And, once again, we say yes. We've never understood the arguments against it. Most of the countries in the world have an official language for government and commerce, and no one thinks twice about it.

But if this session plays out like previous ones, the State Senate will pass the measure while the House of Delegates will fall into a Tower of Babel jumble and the idea will die.

So, what happens when the people vote one way, yet the bureaucrats don't agree? It appears we may see.

A few years back, the West Virginia Legislature passed a law allowing Sunday hunting, but let counties hold local elections on the subject. The citizens of Morgan and 40 other counties voted Sunday hunting down, and it wasn't even close here. That's why we don't have Sunday hunting in Morgan County.

In an editorial last year, we used the increase in the number of phone customers in Morgan County as a way of showing the area's dramatic growth in the last 30 years.

Later we came across a 1926 directory from the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company that listed only about 60 phones in Berkeley Springs, more than a third of them belonging to businesses. We also found a 1907 phone book for

About a year ago we gave up on what we thought was a great article that would be helpful to lots of people. We wanted to get average costs for common medical procedures from the hospitals that most of us use in Berkeley Springs, Hagerstown, Winchester, Martinsburg and Cumberland. After months of trying, we threw in the towel. Just as well, because that towel would have probably cost $49.95 if it had come from a hospital.

This all came back to us as we listened to Governor Joe Manchin outline his wish list to a roomful of legislators and newspaper people in Charleston last week. The last couple times we've heard the governor speak, he stressed his desire to be able to simply understand a hospital bill. Apparently he's asked hospital executives why patients can't be given a complete, decipherable bill when they leave a medical center. Like the rest of us, he gets a mumbo-jumbo answer.