I spend a lot of time in court -- not as a defendant but as a reporter who covers the court beat for The Floyd Press. Besides saddle sores from the hard bench seats in the County Courthouse's one court room I come away with an incredible list of tales of woe from defendants who tell wild, and sometimes, entertaining stories to try and avoid conviction and/or time in jail.

One statistic is amazing:  It seems just about everyone who breaks the law in Floyd County is the sole support of a sick relative who cannot be left alone. So many brought before the judge tell hearbreaking tales of how they have to stay out of jail to take care of mom, grandmom or a sick aunt or uncle. They never have an answer on why they weren't home taking care of mom instead of stealing a car, scoring drugs and leading police on a high-speed chase.

One woman told Circuit Judge Ray W. Grubbs she had an exotic, communicable disease and couldn't go to jail because others might catch it. When Grubbs asked for a doctor's statement she replied: "Oh, I haven't been to the doctor yet but I know I have it."

One woman charged with forging her mother's check said she "grabbed the wrong checkbook by accident" when leaving the house but she didn't have an answer when asked why she signed her mother's name and not her's to the check cashed at a local store.

General Court Judge Ed Turner hears a lot of incredible stories from those caught speeding, ranging from "the accelerator stuck" to "the speedometer was wrong" to "the radar got it wrong."

But in a recent court session, a Floyd County man caught for speeding told the judge: "I guess it was brain fade your honor. I just wasn't paying attention."

Turner laughed before giving the man a chance to clear his record by going to driver improvement school.

It's time for Virginia to join other states in banning cell phone use while driving. At least a half dozen times in the last two weeks, I have almost been taken out by inattentive drivers who run stop signs, stray over the yellow line and change lanes without signaling.

Last week, I locked up all four wheels on my Wrangler to avoid hitting a Honda Prelude driven by a teenager who was texting on her cell phone and drove through a stop sign and onto U.S. 221 without even looking.  I've had to take emergency action in both the Jeep and on my Harley to avoid oncoming cars that crossed the center line because the drivers were more involved in talking on the cell phone than on concentrating on the road ahead.

When I'm driving the Jeep or riding the Harley, my cell phone can ring until the cows come home. I don't use the phone while on the road. I'll return the call when I stop. I'm not going to risk my life or the lives of others just to talk on the phone. Others, unfortunately, don't seem to care about their life or safety. In Christiansburg the other day, I had to swerve to avoid a town police officer who swerved into my lane while talking on a cell phone.

It's time for the General Assembly to ban cell phone use by drivers of any motorized vehicle while that vehicle is on the road (or moving in a parking lot).

The eclectic Emily Brass brought her reggae-blues sound to Pine Tavern Sunday for an evening of fun, dancing and food in the pavilion. The evening also featured Blacksburg band Sol Creech and good food, including veggie chili and chicken tenders on a skewer.

The Pine continues to evolve as a music venue with enthusiastic crowds at the outdoor setting, bringing back memories of bygone days when music was a constant staple at the restaurant.

Promoter Tom Ryan, who also tends bar on Friday and Saturday nights, promises an increasing number of events for the future.

Stay tuned.

Floyd County High School's Buffaloes opened the varsity football home season Friday night with a 47-0 stomping of Rural Retreat.

Roanoke and parts of Southwestern Virginia are pretty much a one-stop market when it comes to health care. Most of the hospitals are owned by the so-called "not-for-profit" Carilion Health System, a mega-health care giant that is driving up health care and insurance costs through lavish perks for executives and excessive charges for medical procedures.

Reports The Wall Street Journal:

In 1989, the U.S. Department of Justice tried but failed to prevent a merger between nonprofit Carilion Health System and this former railroad town's other hospital. The merger, it warned in an unsuccessful antitrust lawsuit, would create a monopoly over medical care in the area.

Nearly two decades later, the cost of health care in the Roanoke Valley -- a region in southwestern Virginia with a population of 300,000 -- is soaring. Health-insurance rates in Roanoke have gone from being the lowest in the state to the highest.

That's partly a reflection of Carilion's prices. Carilion charges $4,727 for a colonoscopy, four to 10 times what a local endoscopy center charges for the procedure. Carilion bills $1,606 for a neck CT scan, compared with the $675 charged by a local imaging center.

Carilion's market clout is manifest in other ways. With eight hospitals, 11,000 employees and $1 billion in assets, the tax-exempt hospital system has become one of the dominant players in the Roanoke Valley's economy. Its dozens of subsidiaries include businesses ranging from athletic clubs to a venture-capital fund.

The power of nonprofit hospital systems like Carilion over their regional communities has increased in recent years as their incomes have surged. Critics charge this is creating untaxed local health-care monopolies that drive the costs of care higher for patients and businesses.

"It's a one-market town here in terms of health care," says Sam Lionberger, who owns a local construction firm. "Carilion has the leverage."

Anyone who has encountered this health care monolith knows it is expensive and often unresponsive. It's also sad that not one of the area's many media outlets have uncovered the effect Carilion has had on heatlh care costs. It took the Wall Street Journal to uncover the story and the only thing the Roanoke media has done is allow Carilion to spew out propaganda claiming the story is wrong.

A cowardly cretin (or cretins) vandalized Floyd's new public restroom this week, removing a urinal from the wall and allowing hundreds of gallons of water to spill out onto the floor and flow out of the building.

It was the kind of despicable act that makes your blood boil. Whether it was the act of someone with a philosophical difference with the changes that are coming to our town or just a mindless vandal who inflicts damage for the hell of it is less important than the viciousness of the act itself -- a wanton destruction of public property that brings disgrace upon our town and raises questions about the character of our community.

A sad day for Floyd.

Rain soaked the area Tuesday and intensified overnight with Wednesday dawning with severe weather and flood alerts. The deluge will probably leave Grand Canyon size gullies in our driveway but I don't care. We need the water in what has been a second year of dry conditions.

Forecasts claim the upcoming Labor Day Weekend will be mostly sunny and pleasant but, with the dryness around here, I'd trade a long weekend of rain for beautiful weather.