If some outsider belittles it for any reason, it doesn't sit well. When Barack Obama screwed up and said people in small towns are often embittered or depressed about the struggle to survive, and cling to Bibles and guns--there was at least some truth in that. But as a Chicago city slicker, Obama'd have been smarter to keep his yap shut if he wanted votes in such places.

As Josh Billings warns, "As scarce as the truth is, the supply is always in excess of the demand." Even a long time resident like me takes a risk, but then I'm not running for anything.

Our people are getting old, our kids are leaving, most businesses are struggling. In an hour's drive in the countryside you can count vacant farm houses until you run out of fingers and toes. The present 3-D seismographing oil mania is making a few locals wealthy, but they spend their money mostly out of town.

The town's name comes from Virgil Gay Bogue, at one time the Chief Engineer for the Union Pacific. That sounds impressive, but the big shot never lived here, probably never even passed through. Maybe the honorific came because Virgil cut a deal to have the place named after him. Who knows. The railroad is no longer here, the tracks and ties are gone. People not from around here don't know how Bogue is pronounced.

"Is that 'bo jew? boo gew? ...boaj?" they ask

I tell 'em. "Bow'g. Long o, hard g." Then I say it.

Then they squint, "Where the hell is that?" I tell 'em it's as close to God and the Devil as anywhere else.

The origin of the word "Bogue" ties into my column title. It's a Cajun French word, one connected to the familiar word "bog." To the Cajuns bogue meant boggy -- a perennially wet, swampy area. Well, until recently the name of the town made no literal sense. Now it fits, thanks to an economic development effort to attract tourists and provide hunting and fishing opportunities The project was initiated, you might say fortuitously, by the Mayor and tacitly approved by a majority of the city council.

Sometime in the summer of 2007 the Mayor, who has a dirt-moving business, installed a water line to his new double-wide -- and apparently saw the opportunity for a two-fer. By May of 2008, the project began to pay off. On the north edge of my own lot, an area I am obliged to mow and maintain, a piddling seep appeared. I invited the Mayor to have a look. (He lives directly across the road.)

"Pretty hard to find," he said. I thought he looked disinterested.

"It'll get worse," I said, having no clue of the two-fer. I should have said "It'll get better" -- which would have raised his spirits.

The Mayor needn't have worried. In a mere 9 months, with city council forbearance, his project has progressed wonderfully. What began as a modest wet spot has improved to an impressive surface flow of considerable length -- too productive to freeze over even in our recent frigid weather. The luxuriant bermuda grass is as high as an elephant's eye.

Thanks to errant vehicles, there are water-filled ruts like abandoned strip mines for stocking fingerling bass. Since the water is filtered and treated to pass Dept. of Health and Environment standards, rainbow trout will thrive. In fact, given the undependable Solomon River, at Bogue's Great Dismal Swamp wildlife of all sorts will surely find a haven. I confess being disgruntled because of the mosquitoes last summer, but now I am considering a paid parking lot and providing guided tours.

Incidentally, I spent a few minutes at the city council meeting last Monday night. The Mayor listened attentively to my 5 minutes of admiration. As I left, I heard him say humbly, "Now we can get to important matters." That is exciting. I'll keep you posted.

A footnote: Over the years, I've commented on the City of Hays' thirst for ever more water. Here in Bogue, we're making a Great Dismal Swamp. Eat your hearts out.

More about water here and here.