User talk:Snelk

Snelk Yes... Snelk. To the uninitiated, a Snelk is not unlike Snipe hunting, excepting the fact that there actually is a bird with the name of Snipe. The Snelk, it's descriptions and stories came to me when working under a pineapple field in Kunia, Hawaii. Yup, "under" is correct. At the time I was an enlisted soldier working for Army Intelligence and living on Schofield Barracks while working in the Kunia Field Station (a fancy name for a building under the ground and accessible only by a long tunnel or a few small doorways in the middle of a pineapple field. Okay, back to the Snelk.  While working many long hours of rotating shift work the madness and delerium of sleep deprivation (normally 14 hour workdays plus physical training, weapons training, and CQ Duties gave us on average 17 hour workdays) would lend us to creating our own diversions while working.  No, I cannot tell you what we did, only that we did it well.  From the humble beginnings of an article in an underground tunnel newspaper to travels in Europe, South American countries and now near the Afghan - Pakistani border, the stories and sounds of Snelks have been heard and repeated.  The Spotted Stump Snelk, the Grasslands Burrowing Snelk and others were thought of and named by myself. Sorry, don't use them in scrabble, okay? Have to goSnelk (talk) 12:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The Eastern Edge of Poverty - Walkerville, Michigan and the dealers that make it run
If you are looking for drugs in Oceana County, Michigan, simply go to the eastern edge of poverty stricken Oceana County and there you will find Walkerville. Main occupation? Small farmer or woodsman. Thats it... If you are a "transplant" you may have an occupational skill and teach in the public school, but thats about all you can hope to get as a job here. Most inhabitants of the area, whether they work or not are on government assistance. A very small village in an area which doubles in population in the summer months. Perhaps one quarter of its inhabitants are migrant workers, legal and illegal and some drugs do come up with them, however if you are looking to score you only need to go to the KWIK MART, Corner Garage, KARS country store or the bar and one of the patrons or workers there will be more than glad to point at the house a few hundred feet away with two or three brand new vehicles loaded with 22inch rims are parked. This is the place where you can score whatever you need to supply your illegal habit -illegal yes, but tolerated by the county law enforcement because as they have stated on numerous occasions; "We want to catch the big fish, not the little fish". Well, little fish, after 15 to 20 years of unfettered amnesty become quite big and the filth they produce during that time period will never wash away. Walkerville, as a village of under 200 inhabitants is a farming community and has no local law enforcement officials. The occasional drive through perhaps once every other week of a state trooper or a deputy of the sheriffs office does little to restrain the constant sales of drugs which have been going on for more than twenty years. Why? Nobody really cares, thats why. This little town on the edge of the county has complained about its drug problems for years but numerous official deals with "the dealers" and the police have left the public no hope for any impact on the drug scene here. One of the dealers has collected over one hundred cars from his patrons who could not pay for their drugs and he has traded some but many remain around the area, parked in his brothers yard, in friends barns, etc. The father and the uncle of the main dealer in Walkerville have been in jail for the past 20 years or so because of drug related charges - this was before the new political appointees became law in Oceana County, a time when arrests were actually made. No, Walkerville hasn't cornered the market on drugs, there are couple of houses in Hart that deal constantly but these places occasionally are scrutinized by local law enforcement. In Walkerville, there is no law, as evidenced by the Saturday night drag races around town and the amount of rubber left on the streets. You can go to the local tavern, walk into the bathroom and make your deals there or at the restaurant or in the school parking lot. So many lives have been changed by the availability of drugs in this small town and every one for the worse. I'm very glad my job forced me to move from this area because, although I love the area my children would have been introduced to drugs very early in life, much earlier than living in a big city. In my visits back through the 'Ville I see the same things, year after year - the apathy and ineptitude of far removed law enforcement and the prosperity of a few drug dealers while everyone else is trying to eke out a living on the eastern edge of poverty.