I had the opportunity to go back to my hometown last weekend for my 25th High School Reunion, Liverpool High School, at one time was one the Nations Largest High Schools-how many of you can honestly say you graduated with 1,000 or more classmates every year? Not many of you. Liverpool is a suburb of Syracuse, NY in the heart of Central New York State. The "Salt City" as it is known as, in the early 1800s salt production was a major industry and until the salt mines out west were found Syracuse was the King of Salt. The Erie Canal went through the city, its now Erie Blvd., and the city grew. Ford, GM, General Electric, Schlitz Beer, Miller Brewing as well as Carrier Corp-the nations biggest A/C company, came to town bringing jobs and building the middle class. Carrier even made Syracuse its Home/Headquarters. General Electric had 4 plants, one that had a road through it, and was a major employer as well as a World War II Air Force testing ground. Other companies, Allied Chemical & Crouse Hines, came to town and settled the northern side of Onondaga Lake. But by 1988, many of those employers started to look for cheaper shores. The Unions, they said, caused these employers to move on. It was cheaper somewhere else.
The folks of Lansing, MI are a proud group. GM is King in this Company town, at one time the City of Lansing had 7 GM plants within its city limits. They too had a plant so big a city street ran/runs through a plant. Good Union jobs provided a home, a vacation home, a boat, a college fund for their sons or daughters, oh and a retirement too. The city of Lansing and the state of Michigan sucked the Auto-Industry for all it could.
Ah the Redneck coastal town of Tampa...Home of the Best Strip Clubs in the World...The folks who escaped the Auto Jobs Leaving them or the people who wanted to escape the snow, 200"+ Inches of Snow, in Upstate NY cam here. Florida, the land of the New America. Wal-Mart at every corner and a strip club at every bend. The future of America is in these parts, the seedy under side that no one likes to take a photo of. Those high paying BS jobs that the unskilled used to rely on. Those BS $55.00 an hour jobs, with all the benefits rolled in, paid for Homes, 4 cars, a snowmobile, a motorbike, a vacation home on the lake and one heck of a drug habit. Now the $55.00 an hour drug is gone and finding a cheap high to replace all the garbage they grew to love is all thats left for them. Welcome to Tampa Sucker! You are not in your little city/town anymore.
Just face the facts, the younger set is already messing their very own future up. They Believe Ron & Rand Paul are really going to lead the way to a better America!! These kids don't have the Beatles, The Who, Public Enemy or Live Aid to shake them out of the trance. The Trance music its self seems to only deepening their Chemical driven run to the Right of everything that gave them this great life!
You dumb-ass, that college loan is a Gov't program...no matter where your Mom or Dad got it-cuz the Gov't is backing it. Think Home Mortgage, same rules in theory apply. As a recovering "libertarian," Hell I did a whole Book Report and got 10 votes in 5th grade by making the case for Ed Clark. Who is he, hell if I remember now, but he was the Libertarian Candidate for President in 1980. The ideas that they stand for sound great...Sure who likes Taxes? Not many people I'm sure. Heck, Make all Drugs Legal, Cant be all that bad....I guess many of these same folks weren't alive in the late '70's and '80's...Coke was not addictive and hey look at all the stuff you could get done when taking it.
Sorry Guys, I like roads, Cops, the Army, basic rules.
The funny stat that we seem to let pass, don't blame a political party because they both have blood on their hands, income keeps growing for one group (and one group only) while the other loses ground. Too many women are working these days, not just because they want too but in other to live the same standard of living their parents had, these ladies have to work Full-time, just to have the family break even. That is not a winning plan, I've yet to ever have anyone say 'having 2/3's of the population at a point where if they lost a job today they could be on the street next week is a good thing.
Heck, Nixon was crook but he did it for power, not to get rich. It's a sad day that you can honestly say that Nixon was most likely a better person than a few of our more recent Presidents. Come on, Nixon didn't sleep with Interns, he didn't sell Missiles to thugs, he didn't sell America out. He was not a nice guy and not the person you may want to hang with but he believed in America. It's sad, really, like looking back at the 70's & white guys wearing Perms and saying at least I had hair.
25th High School Reunions are always good fun. That one girl who was a goody-goody, always turns into a whore and the whore always becomes the perfect mother with 3 kids and the president of the PTA. Its where the former star football player is now a bagger at the local grocery store.
Never look at the world the same way. Make each day a new viewfinder in this ride called Life. Put the past away and move on. Treat each day like a new ride.
At some point you must face the facts; you are either a follower or leader or that super exclusive club- a Maverick. A maverick is the type of person who takes the path no one else will. Looks at others as a stockpile of ideas to make better, improve and make their own. A maverick doesn't fold to pressure. A maverick is someone who treats each day like a new start. It isn't always pretty but it leads to many new and ground break ideas or processes. Steve Jobs was one. MLK was another. President Lincoln was yet another. Mavericks make our lives better and at times they are not loved themselves by us because they are forcing change on us.
Wake up each day and say I'm gonna do something different today....freak someone out.
