The following comment appeared in this week's "Speak Your Piece," an anonymous-complaint column that is a regular feature of the Mountain Eagle, the weekly newspaper of Letcher County, Kentucky. Even though I have never been to Kentucky, this is the only newspaper I have ever subscribed to; and Tom and I have been reading it faithfully since 1983, when we first met our dear friend Ray, son of the owner-editors.  Ray's dad, the great Tom Gish, was, among other things, a major voice in the early fight against strip mining; and the newspaper received many national awards and honors for its dogged fights against corruption, pollution, and poverty. Yet despite its journalistic fame, the Eagle has always been a venue for local issues . . . even very, very small local issues.

I feel this commenter would not be out of place in a Dickens novel.

Have any of you looked in the new telephone book? There isn't a phone number for the Kentucky Power Company. And if you were to find one, please let me know. I have looked through the entire phone book and can't find a phone number for the power company. I called the phone company and was told that the power company probably didn't use them as a carrier. People from the power company say that the number is in the phone book. Somebody is wrong. I have been wrong before, but not this time. We finally found the phone number and it is in the yellow pages under the electric company. Apparently they don't want you to know the phone number.