JUS-A' LOOKIN' FOR A HOME
By Dan Miller
April 25, 2008
I imagine some of you may wonder what we talk about during our afternoon news editorial meetings here at the TV station.
Well, this week as we all sat around the big newsroom conference table, the talk - (as any meaningful conversation eventually does) - turned to the topic of boll weevils.
The discussion was sparked by a story about "pork barrel spending" by Tennessee lawmakers... specifically, six-and-a half million dollars to eradicate the boll weevil.
Now, a lot of people consider that a great waste of money, since we have only nine-thousand boll weevils in the entire state of Tennessee.
Think about it... with only 9,000 boll weevils... and $6,500,000...
that comes out to more than $722 per boll weevil.
Goodness, if I could have earned that much cash for every cockroach I smashed while growing up in Georgia, I'd be a billionaire today.
But our news discussion took a strange turn when someone asked, "How do they know there are only nine-thousand boll weevils in Tennessee?"
Someone else chimed in, "It's done by a census and -- the reality is -- not all boll weevils fill out the questionnaire."
The conversation expanded... "What about boll weevils that are kept by people as pets... are they counted in the census?"
Even our news director, a man of sound journalistic credentials, jumped into the discussion, "I don't think I'd know a boll weevil if one walked into this room right now."
Still another voice... "Would we even be able to see a boll weevil if he did walk into the room.... how big are they?"
From across the table, "Oh they're big... sometimes you can see them grazing in the fields..."
OK, you get the picture.
We eventually moved on to other, more pressing topics.... such as the woman in Florida who found an 8-foot alligator in her kitchen.
Oh! .... about the photo next to this essay.
That's Main Street in Enterprise, Alabama, where they actually have a monument celebrating the boll weevil.
You can see the lady holding a giant boll weevil over her head.
The citizens of Enterprise will tell you it's the only monument in the world honoring a pest.
It's been there since 1919, recognizing the boll weevil as the catalyst for a new era of prosperity.
It seems the boll weevil destroyed the cotton crop and made it necessary for the locals to grow peanuts, soy beans and other crops that ended up generating much more money than cotton.
I can't help but wonder how much money Alabama lawmakers have to allocate every year for upkeep of the monument and the fountain that surrounds it?
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