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Cost efficient manor

Posted by ESC on January 30, 2004

In Reply to: "Here The Snakes Hang Thick From The Cypress Trees Like Sausage On A Smokehouse Wall" posted by ESC on January 30, 2004

: : : There was an song about people who brought a witch into the community because, they reasoned, "swamp magic is useful and good." It was a mistake.

: : : Does anyone know the title? I have googled without success.

: : Jim Stafford: "Swamp Witch" aka "Here The Snakes Hang Thick From The Cypress Trees Like Sausage On A Smokehouse Wall"
: : Jim Stafford, 1973

: :

: : Blackwater Hattie lived back in the swamps, where the strange green reptiles crawl,

: : Where the snakes hang thick from the cypress trees, like sausage on a smokehouse wall

: : Where the swamp is alive with 1000 eyes, and all of 'em watchin' you;

: : Stay off the track of Hattie's shack, in the back of the Black Bayou.

:
: : Way up the road from Hattie's shack, lies a sleep little bayou town;

: : Talk of swamp witch Hattie will lock you in when the sun goes down;

: : Rumours of what she'd done and rumours of what she'd do,

: : Kept folks off the track of Hattie's shack, in the back of the Black Bayou.

:
: : One day brought the rain, and the rain stayed on and the swamp water overflowed;

: : Skeeters and the fever grabbed the town like a fist; Doc Jackson was the first to go;

: : Some said the plague was brought by Hattie - there was talk of a hangin' too;

: : But the talk got shackled by the howls and the cackles from the back of the Black Bayou

:
: : Early one morn 'tween dark and dawn, when shadows filled the sky,

: : There came an unseen caller on a town where hope had run dry;

: : In the square there was found a big black round vat full of gurglin' brew

: : Whisperin' sounds as the folks gathered round - "It came from the Black Bayou".

:
: : There ain't much pride when you're trapped inside a slowly sinking ship;

: : They scooped up the liquid, deep and green, and the whole town took a sip;

: : Fever went away and the very next day the skies again were blue;

: : Let's thank ol' Hattie for saving our town - we'll fetch her from the Black Bayou.

:
: : Party of ten of the town's best men, headed for Hattie's shack;

: : Said "Swamp witch Magic is useful and good, and we're gonna bring Hattie back";

: : Never found Hattie, never found the shack, and they never made a trip back in;

: : Cuz a parchment note they found tacked to a stump said "Don't come lookin' again!"

: Thank you!! We have a new Republican governor in my state. For some reason every time I hear the governor talk about his plan for the state that line "Swamp witch Magic is useful and good..." keeps popping into my head.

: This administration is going to yield a wealth of phrases, if nothing else. The Herald-Leader, Lexington, Ky., today had an editorial that spoke of "sugar-coated fiction" and the "cannibalizing " of government programs. The "other" state paper said:

: PUT SOME ROUGE ON THE CORPSE - "Gov. Ernie Fletcher's budget makers and speech writers did their best to put some rouge on the corpse. But even their best efforts couldn't disguise the harsh truth in the budget he presented Tuesday: Kentucky's fiscal future lies dead in the water in almost every major respect, and there is neither a budgetary plan nor a political prospect for reviving it." From "Flat lining Kentucky," an editorial in The Courier Journal, Louisville, Ky. January 29, 2004.

From a Jan. 30, 2004 press release: "FRANKFORT, Ky. - Gov. Ernie Fletcher and Health and Family Services Secretary Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. today announced a Medicaid modernization plan with a goal of providing the highest quality care to our citizens in the most cost efficient manor possible."

Sounds like we are going to house old people in castles or something.

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