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Name: Mancelona, MI
Age: 147
Occupation: northern Michigan hick town
Last Seen: Antrim County, MI
Bee-otched For: being quite possibly the Detroit of the north
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If you have a kid in school, your worst nightmare could be if your little one was in a bus accident.
That's what happened near Mancelona, MI last week when a bus carrying a dozen students apparently sped around the corner and fell on its side. The bus driver and a fellow student were sent to the hospital with minor injuries. For the ten other students on board, it will be traumatizing for them for the rest of their lives.
The driver, Ronald Davis has been put on administrative leave as the Mancelona Public School district does their own investigation. There was no snow on the road and there were no potholes, either.
As a native northern Michigander, it made me a little more proud that I never went to school in the town many call "Manceltucky" for many good reasons.
My mother worked in the hellhole of 1,400 souls at the machine shop her drunk in-laws own. Her co-workers were nothing short of weird. One co-worker lived in a house that used an old kerosene lamp for heat. Another lived in a trailer with another trailer in the backyard with its roof caved in. Even worse, he couldn't drive because he had way too many DUIs against him and one time, I was at his place and he had an envelope from The 700 Club sitting on his table. The asshole can give money to already-wealthy Pat Robertson but doesn't have the $$$ to buy a nicer house. Oh, and according to my mother, when the shop was watching the planes hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11, he was laughing hysterically.
Yes, that's your typical Manceltuckian: dumb, dimwitted white trash. They put the 'ick' in "hick", so to speak.
Also, my mother - despite having a Bellaire address - was technically in the Mancelona Public School system. When she and her now-ex-husband gained custody of his two kids, she would NOT allow them to attend Mancelona schools. For one, the teenage pregnancy rate is high. I remembered when I graduated from Elk Rapids High School in 2000, there was something like ten pregnant girls in Mancelona's graduating class that year vs. only one in ER. Also, Mancelona's old high school was partly condemned for years. True, they've since demolished that school and built a new one, their schools have some of the lowest MEAP scores of any school in the area.
I remembered hearing years ago when a block of downtown Mancelona burned down, longtime 106 KHQ morning man "The Captain" Bill Vogel cracked that the fire caused $37 worth of damage. Needless to say, the local yokels were pissed and Vogel apologized. Downtown Mancelona resembled a Detroit block for years with buildings that were boarded up for decades. Of course, they tore many of them down years ago. But revitalization or not, Mancelona is a shithole and a half.
When I heard about the bus incident, it made me think about my Dad. He was a bus driver in Elk Rapids for 23 years. He realized that every kid who entered his bus was precious cargo. He only had a few minor incidents, such as backing into two cars, but overall, he was one of the district's best and most popular drivers. That, sadly can't be said about Ronald Davis nor Mancelona Public Schools in particular.
I have a million Mancelona stories. The more I think about that shitty town, the more I appreciate Grand Rapids more. Yes, there's a few assholes with low IQs - especially black folks who use 28th Street as their own personal crosswalk - but at least there's no trailers with its roof caved in. I hope the next time I go to northern Michigan, I don't end up in Manceltucky. Besides, the cops tend to follow you around and pull you over for bullshit reasons.
Maybe it's the contaminated water Dura left behind.
Age: 147
Occupation: northern Michigan hick town
Last Seen: Antrim County, MI
Bee-otched For: being quite possibly the Detroit of the north
---
If you have a kid in school, your worst nightmare could be if your little one was in a bus accident.
That's what happened near Mancelona, MI last week when a bus carrying a dozen students apparently sped around the corner and fell on its side. The bus driver and a fellow student were sent to the hospital with minor injuries. For the ten other students on board, it will be traumatizing for them for the rest of their lives.
The driver, Ronald Davis has been put on administrative leave as the Mancelona Public School district does their own investigation. There was no snow on the road and there were no potholes, either.
As a native northern Michigander, it made me a little more proud that I never went to school in the town many call "Manceltucky" for many good reasons.
My mother worked in the hellhole of 1,400 souls at the machine shop her drunk in-laws own. Her co-workers were nothing short of weird. One co-worker lived in a house that used an old kerosene lamp for heat. Another lived in a trailer with another trailer in the backyard with its roof caved in. Even worse, he couldn't drive because he had way too many DUIs against him and one time, I was at his place and he had an envelope from The 700 Club sitting on his table. The asshole can give money to already-wealthy Pat Robertson but doesn't have the $$$ to buy a nicer house. Oh, and according to my mother, when the shop was watching the planes hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11, he was laughing hysterically.
Yes, that's your typical Manceltuckian: dumb, dimwitted white trash. They put the 'ick' in "hick", so to speak.
Also, my mother - despite having a Bellaire address - was technically in the Mancelona Public School system. When she and her now-ex-husband gained custody of his two kids, she would NOT allow them to attend Mancelona schools. For one, the teenage pregnancy rate is high. I remembered when I graduated from Elk Rapids High School in 2000, there was something like ten pregnant girls in Mancelona's graduating class that year vs. only one in ER. Also, Mancelona's old high school was partly condemned for years. True, they've since demolished that school and built a new one, their schools have some of the lowest MEAP scores of any school in the area.
I remembered hearing years ago when a block of downtown Mancelona burned down, longtime 106 KHQ morning man "The Captain" Bill Vogel cracked that the fire caused $37 worth of damage. Needless to say, the local yokels were pissed and Vogel apologized. Downtown Mancelona resembled a Detroit block for years with buildings that were boarded up for decades. Of course, they tore many of them down years ago. But revitalization or not, Mancelona is a shithole and a half.
When I heard about the bus incident, it made me think about my Dad. He was a bus driver in Elk Rapids for 23 years. He realized that every kid who entered his bus was precious cargo. He only had a few minor incidents, such as backing into two cars, but overall, he was one of the district's best and most popular drivers. That, sadly can't be said about Ronald Davis nor Mancelona Public Schools in particular.
I have a million Mancelona stories. The more I think about that shitty town, the more I appreciate Grand Rapids more. Yes, there's a few assholes with low IQs - especially black folks who use 28th Street as their own personal crosswalk - but at least there's no trailers with its roof caved in. I hope the next time I go to northern Michigan, I don't end up in Manceltucky. Besides, the cops tend to follow you around and pull you over for bullshit reasons.
Maybe it's the contaminated water Dura left behind.
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Got a Bee-otch to nominate? E-mail us @ chuck69dotcom@gmail.com. All suggestions (except for me) are welcome!
Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com!
Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!
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