“If I only had a brain.”
Below are the ten
River Vices posts, in order of frequency, that received the most hits in the last ten years. In the case of #1, my counter crashed when the number of hits for Mayor Kalb's redneck rhetoric approached 450,000 after it was picked up by the Huffington Post and Gawker as well as websites abroad. Instead of being embarrassed by the notoriety he brought to Portsmouth, Kalb is proud of the international recognition he received. “If I only had a brain,” the Scarecrow sang in
The Wizard of Oz. Two of the top ten, #2 and #5, relate to Mayor Murray. #5 illustrates the difficulty outsiders (in this case an English woman) find in adjusting to and being accepted in Appalachia. The slapdash #3 is the biggest puzzle to me because I don't understand why it had so many hits. One of my personal favorites, which just missed being in the top ten, was “Canning the Can-Can Man,” about the WSAZ reporter, Randy Yohe, which you can read by clicking
here.
Top Ten Posts: 2004-2014
(click on number for link)
1) Kalb: Burning the Midnight Oil
2) Recall of Mayor Murray
5) Jane Murray: The Lady’s Not
for Burning
6) Kiwanis
Playground: The Hole Truth
7) Portsmouth’s
Red Light District: Clayton Johnson
8) Portsmouth Daily Times: Prostitution
Culture
9) Frances Trollope
10) Tom Bihl
