Hittin’ the road, jack

Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham

I just wrote a story this week about “The Republican Valley,” and now I’m going to write about how that’s changing.
And nope, I’m not confused.
Because the Valley is a-changin’, and I suppose it’s time for me to read the writin’ on the wall.
How can I tell? Two words: coffee shops.

There’s a million coffee shops in the Valley nowadays – and it ain’t because of all the Republicans, because Republicans don’t drink coffee in coffee shops.

Republicans get their coffee two ways – from Hardee’s or from a gas station.

And it only costs them 50 cents a cup.

It’s not that good – but coffee’s not supposed to be that good. It’s supposed to be coffee – strong, even bitter, to the taste, but it gets you going.

Coffee shops don’t sell that kind of coffee. They sell coffee that tastes good – with fru fru ingredients that sound and probably are foreign, and not the good kind of foreign, either.

Yep, I’m talking about the French – if you’re French and offended, why don’t you do something about it?

No, don’t surrender – see what I’m getting at here with all the changes that we have here in our mountain wonderland?

Ahem.

Good tastin’ coffee is only the half of it. Because these coffee shops also sell … crepes.

Just that word – crepes – says a lot about where things are going here.

Republicans don’t drink fruit-flavored coffee, and they don’t eat crepes.

So it’s obvious why are all these coffee shops are springing up in these parts.

The Democrats are tired of living in Northern Virginia and having to drive two hours to get to work 20 miles away – and Charlottesville has long since all filled up.

So now they’re making the Valley their new shangrila.

Which means that these coffee shops are just the start of it – call me a prophet, call me what you will, but there’s more of this change a-comin’.

For instance, yoga – it’s already here, and there’s only going to be more of it going on.

And football – their kids play the European kind, which means Friday night lights are going to be going dim sooner than you think.

And before you know it – well, and this is already happening, but they’re going to be raisin’ our taxes so that their kids can get into Ivy League schools.

I’d say it’s time that we stand up and fight off the hordes, but it’s way, way too late for that.

The only thing we can do now is copy them and move south and west.

They’ve still got valleys down there – don’t they?

Chris Graham is the author of Stop the Presses: A Collection of Columns. More information on the book is available at www.authorchrisgraham.com.