My Daughters Michelle & Laura & Time Flies

When I was attempting to raise two daughters at 43 years of age (30 years ago), holding down a position which timed out as the worst I'd ever had (alligators in my office every morning), crazed wife on a Moped cruising over the desert hills singing, "I will survive," and me juggling a lousy salary and the presidency on the local school board....I lost an election within the household.
    Wife and two kids elected that they would go to "private school" run by ex-anti-war nuns and I was drafted to come up with the scratch to float it.
    Meanwhile my oldest needed a chauffeur on the weekends, wife wanted her "independence" and the youngest went Mustang. Brewing in my gut was an ulcer that would take me down in the 21st century.
    I was 43. My daughters were young - knew everything. One predicted a Supreme Court Slot, did so in the local newspapers. The other tried running away from home-on a horse. Later, changed her name to one.
    Today, 30 years later, I'm 73, and those two daughters have reached the exact same age I WAS THEN, when I was raisin them, going through all that bullshit, married with two kids at home, crisis du jour, bills, bulls, private school tuition, car payments, ulcer city at work.
    And they? One moved to Chicago and married a socialist, the other - well, the other is struggling.
    Some day, if they ever read this, I hope they understand that as of this day, they walk the earth in the same skin I did - right now, only without the burdens I carried, trying to do my job and balance their needs while feeding them love, support, caring and concern - as I still do, as their father.
    Walk in my shoes, today, as I did 30 years ago. I have not heard from the oldest for a quarter of a century.
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Hamburgers in Manhatten - " Double the Price"??

Watching cable news today, the reports from Manhattan said fast food workers struck most of their establishments for (some say) double their current wages.
     "We can't make it on XXX dollars an hour, " one guy said, " it's too expensive to live in Manhattan on that. We have to have double that - over $15 an hour to survive." Other "victims" of the fast food industry went on to display with their signs, statements, and demands pretty much along the same lines.
      The CNN reporters and HLN staffers who covered the story offered no back up to the comments from the strikers other than sympathy, " it's pretty tough making it in downtown New York on that kind of money, " one said.
       This story will grow legs. No one YET has given any credence to the economic effects of doubling wages of those workers - 100% increases in their pay.
        Will the public pay $10 or more for a hamburger in Manhattan? How much of a loss of a customer base will each store lose because those lower paid secretaries can't afford $50 a week on hamburger lunches? (brown bag city, here we come). When the loss of revenue to fast food hits the owners pockets, how many workers will hit the street?
         You don't need columnist George Will to figure this one out. No one CARES to do the Detroit MATH on this one. Yes, it's expensive to live in New York City. I wouldn't live there if offered a $250K a year job. I hate the idea.
         There is a option to those who can no longer afford to slug it out in the Big Apple on such little pay. MOVE. I did. Most of America does and it's become a habit. You move where the work IS, not where it isn't . You move where the fish are biting, where the money is. You DON'T bleed the city or business dry.
          Don't think so?  Does the word DETROIT mean anything to you?
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Returning Soldier, I saw it on local Television

He was tall, handsome in uniform and was sneaking up behind his 5 year old blond daughter. He got within ten feet of her when she turned around ever so slowly, looked up at him with her face beaming like the head lights of a beautiful Beamer....
       " Hello, Daddy," she said in a conversational tone, as if he'd just been down the block, instead of under fire in Afghanistan.
       I melted into a pile of wet laundry. I remember my oldest daughter 40+ years ago at that moment.
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Conscientious Objectors

During the War, 1% of all British draftees declared moral or political grounds for evading the draft and said they were Conscientious Objectors. Some were jailed, others excused, it was a case-by-case basis as we on this side of the pond like to characterize it. Some were given public service and the
" conchies" were glad to take it.
     In America, less than .01% of the citizenry declared CO status, all of the draftees went, the government granted zero dismissals. Options here were jail, public service, medical experimentation, such as typhus, hepatitis, sleep deprivation, and military support.
     Both Britain and the US had COs in combat, the Brits ambulance corps was made up of one third COs on D-Day. They called it "counter-violence." A lot of them volunteered for bomb disposal.
     Three American COs won the Medal Of Honor, our country's highest combat award, two of them died in the attempt.
     Just sayin.'
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TRUST, Who do people trust, what they tell me. Quandry...

There has been a lot of restlessness in the culture lately. Everyone I talk to, interact with tell me essentially the same thing.
     People are staying home. They are not spending money, except on food, movies, gas, things around town. No one seems to be going to long distance vacations, Summertime trips are shorter, delayed, stay-at-homes are reading, using TV as entertainment, video shops are bustling, soda pop is flying off the shelves.
     Bank Lines are growing, US Mail trucks are delivering more mail. I asked one postal carrier how come, and she said the uptick is heavier. She thought the recent news of the government spying on everybody has driven people "back to the future" back to snail mail.
     " Big Brother can't check EVERY piece of mail," she told me.
     She has a point I thought. With the scandals shooting holes in the trust factor of the government, some people have been drawing out money from banks. As of today, stock market levels took a nose dive unseen in years.
     A general feeling of a lack of trust - in everyone, everywhere, in everything, seems to be coursing through the veins of America. Most I know believe very little in newsprint. Cable news is so ideologically divided, they seem hysterically driven in their reporting, in orbit, devoid of common sense let alone facts. It's difficult to trust some cable channels who deliver news with machettes in their hands.
     Dear friends and relatives thought the president's visit to China to complain of that nation's spying on us somewhat laughable since our nation is spying on us anyway. After all, what's so interesting about what we're doing that makes the average American citizen worthy of such scrutiny?
     Oh, I forget....we're armed to the teeth.
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Things People Tell Me: Michael Moore - where are you, now that we really ...

Things People Tell Me: Michael Moore - where are you, now that we really ...: Remember his e book DUDE - WHERE IS MY COUNTRY?" Then, there was the silly movie where he and a bunch of poor Americans rowed up to Gua...

Michael Moore - where are you, now that we really need you??

Remember his e book DUDE - WHERE IS MY COUNTRY?" Then, there was the silly movie where he and a bunch of poor Americans rowed up to Guantanamo and yelled out, " we only want the same Health Care the Al Queda Prisoners get (fully paid for by taxpayers)."
    Great stuff we saw when Bush was taking it on the chin as Prez, right?
    Well, now, it's just as bad, and a helluva lot worse since President Obama is in the left seat (as we in aviation like to say, pilot). No word from Millionaire stockholder in tech stocks Michael Moore, he of the ball cap, author of Roger and Me.
    One of those mentioned in 100 people screwing up America by Bernard Goldberg. Nothing of substance from him from the Obama flag team champs at MSNBC who, by the y by fail to score ANY audience ratings during the midnight hours. (No one is watching) Tra La.