Reality Check

Early in the 20th century a pretty rotten excuse for a human being who got into European politics made the boast "If you tell the same lie over and over enough, people will start to beleive it is true."
This horrid man brought the entire civilized world into conflict. I am no fan of that rat, but I have to give even the devil his due, he was an expert about human nature and the power of lies upon the intellect of gullible people.

(If you watched a lot of the History Channel in its early years, you probably know who that goose stepping weasel was....Far as I am concerned, the less said about him the better...)

Unfortunately for us all, Madison Avenue, Big Media and modern politicians have also adopted that strategem for manipulating the masses. Todays politicans often tell the same lie over and over again because they know people who don't know any better will often buy into it.
Locally I hear one lie over and over again to the point where I try my best to ignore it ....But it won't just go away.
Here is how it worked the last time...
I was at a dinner following an important meeting of a fraternal organization when one of my friends - who is a wonderful guy- spouted it.
Now he was grousing about having to buy a permit to ride the Hatfield-McCoy Trails.
Mind you, this guy probably made about three times what I make a year. Mind you, he probably spent more than a resident permit costs for lunch that day.
But he went ahead and spouted the lie anyway.
It goes like this...
"I don't see why I have to spend $26 dollars a year to ride the trails, because it was people around here riding who built the trails."
Now, me being me, I pointed out, "No, the guys who were riding around the hills back then were not building anything.They were generally trespassing on private property. I actually know the people on the trail field crew who really did build the trails and they can explain to you that none of the trespassing did a thing in regards to grading levels and making things in complaince with federal transportation guidelines."
Of course, after that, people started ragging him about not wanting to spend fifty cents a week.....
And even though I am not good with math, the way I figure it, if a $26.50 a year permit is divided up by 52 weeks per year, its just a wee tad over fifty cents a week.
You cannot go to the movies for fifty cents a week. You cannot go to the swimming pool for fifty cents a week. You cannot read a book for fifty cents a week, unless you get really lucky on EBAY, or borrow one from a friend or a library. You darn sure can't watch tv for fifty cents a week!
But the sad fact is, over the past decade I have heard a LOT of grousing about the costs of the permits, (Even though the old system cost more for a year's riding). And I keep hearing that one spurious complaint, that same silly lie told over and over and over again.
And I am sure some of our visitors have heard it too. In fact, I know some of you who hear a variation of it regularly when an irate local grumbling because he cannot trespass on somebody else's property tries to lure you into riding so-called "outlaw trails."
Just remember. If you are riding on somebody elses property without permission, you are the outlaw.
The people who like to trespass want to take credit for something they never did. There were a lot of people on the varous HMT field crews over the years and THOSE GUYS deserve the credit. Not trespassers.
Thats' a Reality Check.
I have spoken with Johnny Fekete, Jarrod Stone, Todd Hamrick and others when they worked on different trails and listened to them explaining the importance of grading levels and such, for which there are requirements. This entailed the use of dozers, graders, and other peices of heavy equipment. And the fine folks who used that equipment built the trails. They deserve the credit.
Not whiners, grumblers and grousers who THINK they deserve some credit when they were trespassing, usually without legal permission on somebody else's property.
And that is the key- property.
Lots of folks mistakenly think HMT is built on public property or property owned by the state. Not so.
The Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recration Authority builds and maintains trails to boost the local economy.Because much of the large tracts of land needed to have such a system is owned by land companies engaged in natural resource extraction (Coal, Gas and Timber) we have to get permission from them in the form of landowners agreements to build and maintain trails on their private property.
Some refuse it. Many let us. The reason is simple.
They are so aggravated, annoyed and worried by trespassers that they realize that HMT can help them out by providing liability insurance on their land, which takes care of much of their concerns with trespassers. We can also provide RANGERS who keep down on problems caused by trespassing.
HMT was built so that local communities and folks could benefit from tourists coming here, staying with us and spending money like they do for other vacation spots. And many of you have. Southern WV has become a LEGITIMATE vacation and tourism destination. And we folks who live here have indeed benefitted. Look at towns like Man, Gilbert and Matewan today....then look at them back in the late 80s and 90s.
But to build and maintain trails, well, that takes money. To provide legal liability insurance to the property owners also requires money. And remember, the Authority's only sources of funding are permit sales, merchandising sales and grants. ....
So the folks who used to go riding, where Bearwallow is now, and did not have permission from Dingess Rum land company they were in fact trespassing. Not building a trail. Dingess Rum only gave permission to natural gas companies, coal extraction companies and timber companies to be there, according to the management of the company when I spoke with them many years ago.
The people who think trespassing is no big deal, or that it is somehow beneficial, need to listen to the worries of property owners who have had their land torn up, vehicles wrecked on their propety and have to keep paying for "no trespassing" signs that get torn down and run over again and again and again. Not to mention worrying about some poor fool with bad judgement getting hurt or injured riding around where they are not supposed to be in the dark, or getting lost.
That is another Reality Check for the "We built the Trails" crowd who keep touting the same lie over and over again. For the reality is this. No matter how many times you tell a lie. No matter how much somebody wants to beleive it, a lie is still a lie. No matter what a person's opinion is, only truth and facts matter.
Trespassers did not build the Hatfield-McCoy Trails.
The only 'credit' trespassers can take in terms of "building" the Hatfield-McCoy Trails is in helping create a problem for property owners who got fed up with them. Some of the property owners later decided that in return for getting help from HMT in terms of insurance and liability and control of the situation, it was worth letting HMT build trails there.
That's the main reason why many landowners went along with the idea of having a trail system plopped down in the middle of their property. They did it to get help in dealing with a nuisance and in return for allowing HMT to put a trail system in, they recieved a hefty insurance liability policy and trained law enforcement officers protecting them from people who were riding on their property without legal permission.

So the next time you are in our neck of the woods and somebody spouts their opinion based on a lie, remember the facts. Men on bulldozers and graders built the Hatfield-McCoy Trails. Not trespassers.
Then go ahead and make fun of the guy for whining about paying less than a tank of gas's cost for a year's worth of riding....