My friend left Tucson for Northern California for the money --$$

After 30 or so years here, struggling to make a living, like me, holding some of the best jobs this dusty burg has to offer, just three years ago, my friend Mike takes off for Northern California for " better money."
     I know how he feels. I did it 20 years ago, and mentioned it before in this missive. I'm not that stubborn, and catch on quicker.My next door neighbor just learned it six months ago, trying to sell insurance. He bought the house, spent months refurbishing it, inside and out for his wife and two new children. The economy tanked here in Tucson, the 6th poorest town in America, and he had to RENT that home (couldn't sell it) and move to Albuquerque.)
      Mike discovered late, that trying to make a living in "the old Pueblo" is fruitless. Making a living=making a decent salary.
     The late lamented evening paper Tucson Citizen had been around since before the days of Wyatt Earp. One of the best writers was Larry Cheek, now gone. He once wrote that living here was to " work like a dog" for literally nothing and write great observations on this town's split cultural personality.
     He was write, my joke. He would have appreciated. Years ago, a black Reverend left in disgust and depleted energy headed for Riverside California commenting as he split,
"living here is to suck the life out of you." Right again. A book length blog to explain.
     Mike, ensconced in California, still glowing in the goey delight of Governor Deficit, like the Governor of Oregon to his north, hasn't seen a tax he couldn't pass up. Social Services for the poor and needy? Sure, apply surely there will be funds available somewhere.
     Roads, bridges, postal clerks, police - cut them. Teachers are bailing out windows, unions are getting so strident, their " time-out" rooms are getting as used as delinquent students.
     Mike, forever the bull-head, says, sure, it's expensive over here. Rent is twice Tucson's, but salaries are four times what I made there. (So are taxes, gas, aggravation, tempers, restrictive (stupid non-sensible gun laws) idiot state legislatures, environmentalists, etc. And, there is always, - " The San Andreas Fault."
     The attrition west bound, according to the statisticians is almost one way - out of California. Mike, unfortunately is swimming upstream. I collided with a lady FedEx driver in the lobby of an Ad agency two days ago and we had a pleasant but brief talk.
     Seems she had a masters degree in marketing from UCLA, and worked in Frisco for ten years. Ok, you know the questions I asked. She liked the easy going lifestyle in Tucson, done with the hustle and hassle of San Fran. She is 32. Go Figure
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Colorado - I am a sad and confused American

When I left Evergreen, my wife had died I though my heart would break in a thousand pieces, and the idea of heaven on earth would vanish. Living inside a Currier and Ives print with my princess would stay inside of me for the rest of my life.
    High up in the Rockys, commuting down each day into Denver, living up in the mountains ten thousand feet over the city with my dream girl - it would never, ever get any better. She died, I crumbled, and left. I went to Portland, and the rest is history, and my time in Denver locked away forever.
    Now, I hear Denver and the state have gone to " the dogs." The bull$%## you feed yourselves about gambling by calling it ' GAMING ' is crap and you know it. It is NOT fun, entertainment, or exciting - it's betting. It's losing your money, and hell, those people are getting rich off it. As an assistant Casino Manager once told me, a new casino moving into town is " like giving the community a gift of cancer."
    And hey, now, you add drugs - Marijuana. Not only do you gamble your money away, you can get stoned while you do it. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta is doing a special report on the effects of the stuff on your judgement. Don't think it does much on your judgement? Watch the special, then go on and such that stuff up.
    And now, thanks to the bone headed legislators ( ' ready-fire-shoot') the gun CONTROL legislature now has passed a bunch of stupid laws binding YOUR hands in case you need to defend YOUR home and heart.
    The bad guys at the local Circle K? Frisk them some time if you get the chance, doubt that they're carrying any legal gun permits, tho. What's her name? Rep. Degette? Had all the answers on new legislation, come to find out she didn't even know that an ammo clip for a rifle was NOT A BULLET. She learned in an on-air interview that an ammo clip holds bullets.
     Pushed legislation through without knowing what she was doing. Nice. You elected her.
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15th Air Force - B-17s Air Missions out of Italy WW II

Joseph Heller, a much vaunted author of "Catch 22" wrote the sometimes critcized anti-war novel mentioned back 30 or so years ago during the Vietnam days. It was the story of bomber squadrons of the 15th USAAF stationed in Italy with missions flying into German targets in Europe and I believe Ploesti oilfields.
     The latter was the most significant as Ploesti was the life blood of the Nazi war machine. Choke off the German oil, you kill their tanks, motorcycles and jeeps. The 15th had that job, and with a horrendous casualty rate, they did it.
      Each mission cost them roughly 20% of their squadron (x 10 men per B-17). So, they figured, after 5 missions, you were 100% dead, as the story goes.
      The Catch-22 movie was a nut-ball of a story, drew crazy reviews had crew members hiding in palm trees, dumping bombs in the ocean, shooting up fishing boats, generals issuing orders while sittijng on toilets, flying officers in formation, naked, crazy stuff, start to finish.
       While I was a docent at a local B-17 Museum here in Tucson, I had the pleasure of interviewing a pilot fro the 15th Air Force who wondered into the museum. Much to the consternation of the Director of our Museum, I spent a lot of time with visitors and sucked as much out this guy as I could. He came in his old flight jacked and 50 mission crush cap.
        The Gist of it was, " everything I saw in Catch 22, was true, " he told me. " I was there, I lived it, I saw it. We were drunk half the time. We had no idea who would be killed, who would survive, it's a wonder any of us got back."
       And, he had the black and white pictures to prove it.
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Bank of America - Customer Service (???)

Did you know that Bank of America has over 15 pages web page explaining variations of "FEES" they charge for checking and savings accounts?...15 pages of FEES, and they are all different!!

Did you know that if you want a check IMAGE on your own "paperless" account, they charge you $3.00 for each one?

Did you know if you call their 800 #, you will be put on "terminal hold " forever?

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A Message to Australia on American Violence

The United States is 3rd in murders throughout the world!!

BUT, subtract New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit and Washington, DC - the United States  drops to the 4th from the BOTTOM for murders!!

Those four cities have the TOUGHEST GUN CONTROL laws in our country.

So, absent of that fact, you gotta ask yourself, what else do those four cities have in common? Hmm?

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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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