It was one of those foggy spooky nights when visibility was nonexistent. The headlights on the car would briefly shine on roadside objects in passing. Although the road was a familiar one, I couldn’t have said exactly where I was until I recognized the long pasture fence on the right.

The fence is just past Roanoke Baptist Church and keeps a herd of Black Angus cattle inside a large pasture. On occasion, a herd of sheep can also be seen there.

In daylight it always offers a view of interest. At least to me. In spring, the grass in the pasture is thick and a distinct emerald green. If the herd of sheep is there, lots of spring lambs will be on display with their mothers.

If cattle are there, cows with their calves will be enjoying the springtime sun.

It’s a working farm and has been for more years than I’ve been alive.

Other occupants of the pasture are several donkeys and a large emu. Emus are among the eeriest-looking birds on the planet, with their huge yellow alien eyes and disconcerting way of looking at humans.

On this particular evening, I was driving very slowly when passing this stretch of road when the headlights picked out an animal on the outside of the pasture, very close to the fence and moving rapidly.

At first I thought it was a dog, but when it turned its head to glance my way, I realized that although there was some resemblance to a dog in its general appearance, it was actually a coyote.

And it was a coyote on a mission, looking for a way into the pasture.

The foggy night made the scene even more sinister.

But then I remembered the donkeys and the emu and felt a little reassured. I did wonder if the coyote was alone or if he was hunting with a pack.

Years ago, I saw what havoc a pack of wild dogs wrought on a herd of unprotected cattle, and it was a sight I never want to see again. Dogs are pack animals, and when abandoned by humans will join together and hunt and kill together. An understandable action on the part of the dogs, but an unfortunate fate for the victims.

Nowadays most folks raising stock have ensured protection for their herds by also keeping donkeys, emus and/or Great Pyrenees dogs.

Coyotes are successful predators but are no match for an angry donkey or a vigilant Great Pyrenees. The Great Pyrenees have been used to protect herds for centuries and are never off duty.

If you’ve ever seen a donkey kill a snake, you’ll understand why coyotes should be wary of them. Though small, they are quick and their little hooves are more effective than a sledgehammer.

We never worried about either coyotes or wild boar in the past. And we had no reason to. But the brilliant forethought of fox hunters and boar hunters introduced both these species to the region, with disastrous results.

When the fox population declined, some fox hunters in their infinite wisdom brought in coyotes as a replacement — just as game hunters imported wild Russian boars to offer more sport.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, coyotes have become so prolific now that they’re more than just a nuisance.

And wild Russian boars have crossed with domestic hogs and wreaked havoc upon gardens, crops, and even front yards in neighborhoods, destroying millions of dollars’ worth of property.

It’s all part and parcel of the same thought process that brought in kudzu for erosion control. Well, how’s that working out?

So, before we bring in anything else that isn’t native to our region, maybe some thought should be given to what effect it would have on everything else that’s already here. Just saying.

It was a rainy afternoon and I was trying to stop by the house and take some cold medicine before going to a Pickens City Council meeting. On my way up my driveway, I got stuck in some wet leaves that had fallen across the driveway.

I know this does not sound like a real problem, but trust me, when you live in Dacusville and your driveway is about a quarter of a mile long — uphill — it is.

So I got out of my car and walked the rest of the way up. When I got to our front porch, I pulled out my door keys and stepped onto the wooden porch in front of our kitchen door and got ready to unlock the door. I tripped and found myself laying on the porch enjoying the rain.

As I lay there, I found that I could not get up. Apparently I had fallen into the brick wall at the corner of the house. So I had no choice but to “enjoy the rain” until my parents arrived home from wherever they had been.

About an hour later, my parents came home. My father noticed me there and thought I was dead. He rushed from the car and tried to cover me with a tarp. But bless his heart, picking up a 300-plus-pound son was a bit to ask of him. He called the nearest ambulance station and asked them to help me.

They arrived in about 10 minutes. My mother pulled an old tarp over me to protect me from the rain that was still coming down. The ambulance workers helped me to my feet, and I went inside the house. After I had caught my breath, I got into the car with my parents and headed to the hospital to get my arm taken care of.

When we got there, the staff was very friendly. Nobody asked how it happened or made comments like, “Son, can’t you see a brick wall in front of you?”

They x-rayed the arm and found that I had broken a bone in my forearm. Because I had broken the same arm previously, they said they could not set the arm in a cast. Instead, they just put the arm in a sling and told me to do the best I could with it and hope it heals quick.

The next week, I went to see a doctor, and she was concerned about the cold I had caught by laying in the rain for an hour. She admitted me into the hospital to deal with the cold.

While I was in the hospital, they tested my body several ways. When after a week I was scheduled to get out, the doctor wanted to run one more test. In that test, they found that I had a blood clot in my lungs that was causing my problems.

The phrase scared me. “Blood clot in the lungs” sounds like pretty serious business. But the staff at the hospital began treating me, and before long the clot was gone. I guess I should be thankful for the doctor who insisted on “one more test.”

So I went home to recover. The clot, due to my medication, disappeared. I finally felt better again.

Honestly, I spent most of the time recovering from my cold, not from my arm injury. Once I rested a few days, my arm healed enough so I could type again, which meant I felt no ill effects from the break at all.

But had I not laid in the rain for more than an hour, I probably would not have known about the blood clot at all. Unless somebody had written about the clot on my tombstone.

Saitta talks district’s options

Dear Editor,

I’m sure most read the article where the school district paid architects $50,000 to study the possible refitting, consolidation or closing of six buildings that included Hagood, the old Pickens Middle, Northside school in Easley and the district office, B.J. Skelton and the operations buildings. They came back with three alternatives: Plan A was to do nothing, which had a $5 million price tag. Plan B was to close Hagood and renovate it, plus do some new construction at B.J. Skelton. Various district administrative functions would then be moved into those two buildings. The total cost of Plan B is $15 million. Plan C was to close Hagood and renovate it, plus renovate the old Pickens Middle at a total cost of $22 million. All district administration functions would be moved into those two buildings.

There are two key aspects here — closing Ben Hagood and more building renovations and new construction.

The administration and board majority are moving in the direction of larger class sizes and larger schools. That’s the wrong direction. They eliminated 55 classroom teaching positions in the last two years or so. I voted against that. The plan is to eliminate 12 to 18 more teaching positions next year. Now they are proposing Hagood be closed. I oppose that, too. Simply put, I support the principle of smaller class sizes and smaller schools, in order to provide students more personalized instruction with their teachers.

The school district just finished spending $387 million, building seven new schools and renovating another 20. The district barely has the money to maintain its new buildings, much less the funds for more building plans running in the $15 to $22 million range.

If they move forward, they’ll have to borrow more. The district is still saddled with more than $300 million in construction debt (nine times the legal limit, thanks to the Greenville Plan). And they’ll have to raise taxes to fund the additional loans. If they funded Plan B over, let’s say, five years, that would be a seven-mill property tax increase. Plan C would be a 10-mill increase. School taxes have already risen from 128 to 165 mills due to the building program.

Not only do I oppose what the architects presented, but I opposed paying them $50,000 to do the study in the first place. The last eight years the district paid architects nearly $25 million in fees (enough to build a middle school). Architects make money by charging fees for drawing up plans, and if those plans are built, they charge a percentage on the size of the job. The bigger the plans, the more they make. It is not surprising that even their do-nothing alternative (Plan A) had a $5 million price tag.

We are a school district, not a construction company. Instead, the district should shift its focus back to educating children, maintain its new buildings and work on paying down some of its $300 million in staggering debt.

Alex Saitta

School board trustee

Pickens

On flaws in the system

Dear Editor,

I am writing about an article I read in the Dec. l6 paper regarding the conviction and sentence of a man who killed a man in Pickens County. I’m writing this as a man who is currently incarcerated in federal prison. I feel it necessary to bring to the attention of you and your readers the disparity of treatment between the state and federal governments.

According to your article, Benjamin Anthony Vinson willfully possessed and displayed a shotgun during the commission of a violent crime. After ultimately pleading guilty to manslaughter, Mr. Vinson was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

I, too, possessed a gun illegally. Due to the fact that I had a prior felony conviction, my possession of that gun was a federal crime. At the time of my sentencing, the judge, prosecutor and probation felt that my prior felony was violent — violent enough that I should be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years — twice that of Mr. Vinson, who killed a man.

Since my conviction, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has ruled that the prior crime used to enhance my sentence to 15 years is not a crime that can be used to enhance my sentence. As a result, my maximum sentence could not be greater than 10 years. However, due to flaws in our federal laws and an obstructionist federal judiciary, I sit in prison, serving the 12th year of my sentence.

That I am incarcerated illegally is not in dispute. Neither is the fact that I will spend more time in prison for possessing a gun than Mr. Vinson will for using one. Obviously, our system, while great, is greatly flawed. I encourage you and your readers to help do something to fix it.

Bradley Shane Sheppard

Federal Prison Camp

Edgefield

HUD and Obama’s stealth plan

Dear Editor,

There are so many things people are stressed about when it comes to government lately. And here’s another stressor.

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule is a huge stress maker that many of you are probably unaware of. HUD (Housing Urban Development) revealed this plan last year, and without a doubt this is Obama’s most radical stealth attack on local control.

This is just another way for the federal government to control voting. Move in a bunch of people who typically vote Democrat and bingo, we will no longer have a conservative Upstate here in South Carolina.

If enough county councils would stand up and refuse to comply, then HUD would hopefully back down. No county has given pushback yet. Unless your county council takes a stand, you will lose any control over housing decisions. If local governments would stop taking HUD grants, that might help. It is time government starts treating property owners as property owners and not slaves to federal government overreach.

This plan will destroy your property rights, property values will go down, crime will increase in all neighborhoods and local home rule will be erased.

It requires every single community that uses HUD grants to do demographic analyses to see if enough minorities and low-income people are living in every neighborhood. HUD will search people’s personal records in each neighborhood for their race, color, religion, etc.

If HUD determines there aren’t enough people in each category, HUD alone will claim an “imbalance.” This will force social engineering without your consent.

We the people must do everything we can to prevent this from happening!

Every neighborhood will be re-evaluated every five years. There will no longer be a choice of the kind of neighborhood you wish to live in, because they will all be the same.

Home rule and local control in the U.S.A. will be eradicated.

HUD is already searching the last Census reports to find out about your neighborhood.

The recent passage of the Omnibus Bill actually increased HUD’s budget by $2.6 billion, which gave them plenty of funds at the federal level.

Please flood Congress with calls supporting S.1909, which will stop this from taking place. You can go to americanpolicy.org, and on the right hand side click “Obama order will destroy local government” and sign a petition.

 Johnnelle Raines

                                                                                                                  Pickens