![]() ![]() They’ve ‘discovered’ Pocahontas County and now nothing can change. “You think we want to deal with stone knives and axes for the rest of our existence? You’re like these fucking people who move in here and don’t want it to change, that it? We have people who have moved here in the last five to ten years and they don’t want anything to change. “But I’m here because you’re behind the curve,” I said. “So? So?” He said he wasn’t going to let the electrosensitives keep Pocahontas “behind the curve” for cell service. “They see Green Bank as a haven,” I said. “Wackos that are afraid of their brains getting fried and all that?” he responded. I asked if he was concerned about the impact of cell service on the electrosensitives. That attachment ended in 2012 when he moved back to Pocahontas, where he only carried an iPhone so he could listen to music in his truck. He’d gotten his first cellphone in 1986-it was the size of a beer bottle, with a three-foot-long antenna, and it went to bed with him every night. He had earned his law degree from West Virginia University in 1979, married a girl from Marlinton, and started his career in Pocahontas County before becoming a well-heeled insurance defense lawyer in Charleston. ![]() Martin knew well what connectivity was like outside the Quiet Zone. Right fucking there we are on Verizon’s commercials.” “Pause and look at it real closely, and you’ll see right where Pocahontas County is because almost the entire Eastern Seaboard is all yellow and right there in southeastern West Virginia there’s this hunk about this big-it’s Poca-fucking-hontas County. “You seen that commercial saying Verizon has more coverage than anyone else?” he asked me. Martin came across as a dogged lawyer who knew how to get things done. government could see the corruption he was dealing with (even if he was admitting to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act). For years, he’d also operated a hotel in Belize, paying “tens of thousands of dollars in bribes” and putting the payments on his tax returns so the U.S. He had a history of getting into fights at West Virginia University football games. A blustery guy, Martin was once jailed in Marlinton for contempt of court for arguing with a circuit judge. “I got a pig living in the house.” Despite his home literally being a pigsty, Martin was always the best dressed at county meetings, usually wearing tight designer jeans, leather boots, and a crisp dress shirt, top buttons undone and a few chest hairs curling out. “I’m the true image of West Virginia, aren’t I?” Martin laughed. Pig knew how to open the front door and pull a blanket over himself. ![]() In the adjacent mudroom was a 250-pound Vietnamese potbellied pig named Pig, who was snoring. Come in here.’”Īt our feet were two boxers and a basset hound. I wrote a letter to everybody and said, ‘We have shit for cellphone service here, we want you to come in here, we’ll partner with you, we’ll help you however we can. “I promised the companies that we’ll get everybody in the damn county to sign up with them. “How many cell companies have you written to?” I asked. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. ![]()
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