Let us for a moment consider the common rat. A varmint, loathsome in appearance and vile in habit! Yet, possessing survival skills equal to the repulsive cockroach, the disgusting opossum, or an incumbent politician!

“My apologies to the opossum!”

Rats will locate a food source, then colonize the area by rapid breeding and will remain until the food is exhausted or they are exterminated by some method.

For all his cunning, the rat has a fatal flaw in his makeup. It is gluttonous as well as destructive. On very early sailing vessels, once aboard, the rat would eat the food purloined from the crew, then, due to his destructive nature, would eat the leather lining of the ship’s interior, thus destroying the water tight integrity of the vessel and the rat, as well as the crew, took a quick trip to Davy Jones’ locker!

Let it be known that a rat will stay with a crippled or floundering vessel, but will with all haste, leave a sinking ship!

Could it be, dear reader, that the announcement by so many of our Senators and Congressmen, “of long service,” not to seek reelection, sense, like the rat that our great ship of state is floundering and may shortly sink beneath the waves?

The lining stripped from this one magnificent vessel, thought to be unsinkable, by the very people who are now seeking to disembark! To date, no incumbent from West Virginia has announced their intention either to seek reelection or to retire.

Should any or all of them decide to stand for reelection, they would do well to remember that a stinking ship attracts sharks!

Denver McMullen

Middlebourne