Hazzard County Administration Building, to the attention of Commissioner Jefferson D. Hogg:
My name is Larry Jarvis, and I’m the newly-elected President of the Hazzard County Bridge Builders Union. My father was a bridge builder, his father was a bridge builder, and his father before him was a bridge builder. Needless to say, I have known bridges all my life.
As you no doubt well know, Hazzard County, Georgia has 2,730 bridges, a disproportionate and perhaps unprecedented number for a single county. As you also know, the vast majority of these bridges are in a terrible state of disrepair.
All too often, our union is blamed for the sorry state of these bridges. Nothing could be further from the truth. Frankly, my men and I are working around the clock to attempt to provide the necessary repairs that will allow the citizens of Hazzard County to cross our hundreds of creeks safely and efficiently.
However, our efforts are constantly stymied by two factors.
The first factor is that, with all due respect, the funds that you allocate to our organization each year for bridge repair are woefully inadequate. We barely have enough money to cover the cost of building materials, much less provide attractive wages for employees. We’re consistently losing bridge builders to our neighboring counties each year.
The second issue is so obvious that it hardly bears pointing out, but I’ll state it anyway: whatever progress is made towards bridge repair is undone almost instantly by the high-flying antics of the Duke cousins.
I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have just completed erecting and hand-painting a sign advising motorists that a bridge is out ahead, only to see that hateful car of theirs round the corner and drive clean through the sign, then jump across the creek using the half-completed bridge as a makeshift ramp. These sorts of stunts cause immense damage to the structural integrity of the bridge, often requiring us to completely redo the surfacing of the deck and replace damaged cap sills.
To make matters worse, mere moments after the Duke cousins have made their escape, your Sheriff Coltrane generally comes roaring along behind them and crashes his police cruiser directly into the creek. I have personally seen Sheriff Coltrane wreck his cruiser as many as 27 times within a single year. The amount of money this county spends solely on law enforcement vehicles could easily fund both the repair of existing bridges and the construction of new ones.
It seems to me, Commissioner Hogg, that bridge repair should rank high on your personal agenda, given that nearly every time you and your sheriff are attempting to arrest Beauregard and Lucas Duke (and occasionally their far less popular cousins Coy and Vance), your pursuit ends in failure when they escape by jumping a half-completed bridge.
Far be it from me to question your judgment, Commissioner Hogg, but I sometimes wonder whether you actually WANT to apprehend the Duke cousins. You and your sheriff have engaged in high-speed pursuits with them on more than a hundred occasions. You know exactly who they are. You know exactly where they live. You know the identities of their co-conspirators. You know that they drive the only orange 1969 Dodge Charger in the entire county and possibly the entire state. If nothing else, they’re certainly guilty of reckless driving, a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to a year in jail. How is that not a violation of the terms of their probation?
With all of these concerns in mind, it brings me no pleasure to announce that the members of the Hazzard County Bridge Builders Union will be going on strike effective this coming Monday. Our sole demand is quite straightforward: increase our budget allocation by 75 percent, allowing us to finally repair and modernize our county’s bridge infrastructure.
I should also inform you that another union will be joining us in a sympathy strike. The International Brotherhood of Fruit Stand Owners, Cardboard Box Stackers, and Plate Glass Transporters was eager to support our cause.
