I remember the first couple of times we came through the mountains, and, in Mayhill, noticed the signs at the Mayhill Market. KILL OBAMA care said one. Surely the guy noticed that with his capital letters, he was encouraging the assassination of a president? Other signs were actually more offensive, as they implied that Obama 1) was Muslim, 2) should go back to Africa, or 3) was intent on destroying the nation.

Sound familiar? The Mayhill Market sat next to pay-yourself gas pumps, and on the other side was the Mayhill Cafe, a restaurant owned by a local family that served and still serves good food. The town is quiet; there isn't much else going on there. There is a community center, a volunteer fire brigade, a few other things, that's it. So these two places, side by side, more or less, were the whole center of the town.

I wrote the Mountain Times objecting to the spirit of the Mayhill Market. To me it was dark, menacing, and borderline illegal. You can't slander or threaten the president of the US; yes, there is free speech, but really whether you can post signs like that depend more on the standards of the community, and, as part of the community, I'd like to say that they are offensive. I don't think the letter was published. I feel though that people in the community need to establish community standards. For the record, I would object also to vulgar, untrue, and threatening signs directed at any American president.

Now the problem is this. In this bitterly divided world, someone got wind of the kind of vulgar, offensive sign this Mayhill Market guy is putting in its windows. An online campaign to find the owner and let him know how offensive it was, was started. But the problem is, the Mayhill Market doesn't have a website, or a Facebook site. So, the trolls found the Mayhill Cafe, and harassed them. But the Mayhill Cafe is a reputable place. It's a good restaurant, and they would never post signs like that in their windows or anywhere else.

I don't really know the history of the place, or of the guy that owns it. It seems to me, it's been for sale for a long time, as has a truck or jeep that is always parked there. Perhaps the guy found out that when he posts signs like that, he loses a lot of business. But my sense is, he doesn't care about the business. It's more important to him to express himself than to make money or please people. And he doesn't care if the store sits just like it is for the next twenty years.

He does get occasional visitors, and he has another sign that says "Free Coffee." This last would be a draw for me, but, I'm not going in.

I suspect that the locals know him, that he's from around here. I suspect that they respect his freedom of speech, and don't feel like they should use the power of law to make him more civil. I suspect that though they agree with me, that he's beyond the pale, so to speak, they don't agree enough to actually do something about it, something that would force him to at least keep his signs within the realm of common decency.

It's actually an interesting story, in the sense that the guy intends to be vulgar, offensive, threatening, etc.; the guy has gotten away with it for years; the guy is getting the attention he wanted; and, he's a test case for community standards as they presently exist in this area.

We don't allow WalMarts here. People raised holy hell when they opened a Family Dollar. We don't have stop lights, and they probably wouldn't even allow a Holiday Inn. Granted, Mayhill is twenty miles into the sticks, out in the country, isolated, not really even Cloudcroft. But it's the same mountain community, basically. So what constitutes "offensive?" I guess we'll just have to find out.