A Road of Little Consequence

I was driving down a road of little consequence, just today. A warm, Indian Summer sun sat in a western sky, and the aroma of dry spruce hung heavy in the air. The road was slightly cracked and the center line was faded and veering. The narrow lanes challenged my mind not to wander, but my imagination has always been a rebellious one. My old pick-up, a relic from the Carter administration, was now as much a friend of mine as my dog who sat, loyally as my co-pilot.

The past year had not been an easy one, and for that matter, neither had the one before that. A slew of piss-poor career attempts had left me unemployed and a failed marriage, a few failed relationships, and a group of strangers I believed were my friends had my mood and my mind in a somewhat depressive state. My short-comings and a future of seemingly worse events ahead were becoming thoughts that were beginning to trip over each other in my head. One job in particular that had seen me fired, had subsequently left me especially bitter, and almost unfeeling.

A stainless-steel mug of coffee, poured from my thermos sat cooling in my cup-holder. The broken center-line flashed by, and seemed to hum silently.

The past had left me a pile of debt I could never pay, a home I could no longer live in, a dream extinguished, my talents squandered. I spoke aloud to my dog in a serious tone, “You know, I could pull the truck over here. Right here. You and me, we could hike into those mountains today. Those mountains go on forever, they’re endless. Things get forgotten in those mountains. I’d only take you so far my friend, then I’d let you go to run, some campers would find you, and they would take you home with them. But I’d go further, I’d walk and hike so deep, and so far, until I was sure no one would ever find me. And then….I'd do it. People would find my truck. They’d figure I got lost. They’d even search for me I suppose. But I’d be leaving no wife behind; no children would miss their Dad. So they wouldn’t look that long, or probably even that hard. I’d be someone they could forget about.”

I could feel my foot easing on the gas pedal to find the brake and a spot to pull the truck to the side. But then something stopped me. I did indeed need to brake, but not because I intended on carrying out my plan, but because ahead of me on this deserted road, high in this mountain pass, was a small bridge. A bridge that ran above a clear creek that like the road, had no name. And scattered like tossed stones to the side were three bikes. Bikes of children, the tires mis-matched, the painted faded and chipped, dropped alongside the road in a hurried enthusiasm. And on that bridge were two boys and a sister, the oldest no more than eight, casting dime-store fishing rods into a stream as pure as their innocence, a summer sun in its twilight at their backs. I slowed the truck and passed, and noticed their pink shoulders and a Tupperware that was one of Mom’s best, filled with thin, hand-dug worms and black dirt.

In a world filled with everyday news of corrupt CEOs, and video game addiction, 3000 calorie Happy Meals, and sub-prime mortgages, for just a brief moment, on a no-name road in a land as green and perfect as Heaven, I glimpsed hope once again.

I pressed on the accelerator as the road ahead of me looked as if it could take me to the ocean, and a smile pulled itself, ever so slightly, out of a corner of my mouth.

The Person Who I am

I am a sitter. A watcher. A person who, by a young age was out of place. Where was I to fit in? I was from a poor home, a home of little monetary privilege, of little luxury, and even less societal fortitude. And so I sat. On the outside, looking in, on the sidelines, watching the game of life played out by others. Others, who grew up with the apparition of wealth and the illusion of their own self-induced enlightenment. As a watcher, a keen observer, I discovered even at a tender age that the wealth I ensued was far greater and was much higher in regard than their false monetary type.
I am a reader. A writer. A critic. A person who researches my interests, and full fills my curiosity by filling my notebooks with useless knowledge, retaining worthless facts. I toil over matters of no value, of little worth, insignificant in their circumstance, useless in day to day conversation; total and complete rubbish.
I am a purist. A believer. A helpless romantic. I live in a time and a place where I don’t belong. I believe in ever-after while surrounded by the temporary. I stroll while the world hurries. I absorb while the rest scans. I am alone in my pursuits. Misunderstood, misjudged, misconstrued.

Bill Gates Punched a Time Card Everyday

When I was a very young man, just starting out in the wonderful world of work, a mentor of sorts, told me to always keep my nose to the grindstone. He went on to explain that good hard work was the secret to success, money, security, and advancement. I cherished that advice as I bit my lip and lowered my shoulder into the great unknown in front of me. As the years went along, I found myself in a number of different disciplines, and I always lived by the motto of the hardest working man I had ever known. Success and fortune awaited me, possibly at any corner of the road in front of me. It was mine for the taking; I was to simply sacrifice the sweat upon my brow, and the spirit that lay deep in my soul. I rode an ocean of differing economic tides and found myself laid off several times, and even fired once for a reason I am still contemplating. Several times throughout my tenure, I wanted to give up, I wanted to give in, and blend in, to perform simply a mediocre job; to behave much like the sprawl of other slackers, but I could almost taste the rewards of my hard work, and dedication.
Almost fifteen years after I had punched the first slot on a timecard, I ran into my mentor. He explained proudly that he was still working for the same company, ‘twenty-four years now, and I still have my nose to the grindstone, working as hard now as I did on my first day.’ While I admired his honest, and sincere enthusiasm in knowing he had always worked with a sincere attitude, and undying devotion to his trade, I couldn’t help but notice, he had gone very little in the success department, and was lagging even further behind in the fortune and security division. That’s when I came to the unsettling conclusion that what I had been taught and conditioned to my whole life was, in the simplest terms I can articulate, a total and complete crock of shit. I started to think of the great success stories of modern times: Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Warren Buffett, they are mavericks; people who didn’t follow the rules. Even historically, the greatest people in our nation’s history have been the individuals, who by their own admission, saw that the people around them were going nowhere and decided instead, to go somewhere. They broke the rules, did things their own way, and forged their own existence. Going into work every day, punching in on time every day, working hard and efficiently every day, only guarantees you’ll do that samething, everyday, for the rest of your life.

Some Thoughts on Things we Have, and the Things We're Going to Get

Have you ever noticed what people talk about? I was at a restaurant eating lunch at a side booth yesterday, with a dozen conversations going on all around me, and it suddenly dawned on me that people, in essence, only talk about two things: things they have and things they are going to get. I don’t think people always used to talk about that. I can remember when my dad’s friends would stop by when I was younger, they would stand in the driveway at my home, and I would rarely hear them having a discussion on what they had or what they were going to buy. They’d talk about the driveway they had just sealed, or how this was going to be a hot summer. My mom’s friends would ask how she made the ice tea, it was so delicious. Now people talk about everything they’ve bought that week, and the things they plan on buying next week. I suppose the only way to prove to someone that you have just as much money, and thus you’re just as good as them, is to buy things, and talk about it, and then explain that you are very much inclined on purchasing quite a bit more, and you’re going to spend a lot of money doing all of it. I don’t think anyone knows how to do without. When my dad was out of work, my family did without. Rough times fall on everyone sooner or later. The difference between now and then is now people refuse to skip a beat. Material items seem more important to people today. People like to tell you what they got, followed immediately by how much they paid for it. I don’t like telling people how much I paid for anything. I figure that’s my business. I don’t care to explain to people what I have either, or what I plan on buying. I really don’t have that much stuff come to think about it. I guess I really don’t have that much to talk about with other people. Maybe that’s why people don’t talk to me.

Telephone Books

I am not so sure I understand any longer why we have telephone books. At one time, the telephone book was a pretty big deal. I can remember my grandmother’s house very well growing up as a child. There was a cupboard next to the phone where she kept all the phone books. Every so often a new one would come in the mail and she would quickly replace the old one with it. It was an exciting moment for her. There were several phone books in that old cupboard. There was one for the small town where she lived. It wasn’t very big, but if you needed to call someone, well at least you had it. Problem was, sooner or later, you would need to call someone who didn’t live in town. That’s why she had a little bit bigger one for the county. I don’t think a lot of people looked at the first few pages of a telephone book, they just simply opened it and found the letter of the last name of the person they wanted to call, and that was that. But there was always a map in the first few pages. I used to love maps. I guess I wanted to go anywhere but where I was.
Now days, there doesn’t seem to be much use for telephone books. We have the internet, where we can find a phone number to anyone, anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds. That doesn’t matter much, because, nobody really has a home phone they answer anymore anyways. We don’t need telephone books anymore. But we still get them. And they are bigger now than they’ve ever been. I can’t seem to figure out whose numbers are even listed in there. No one I ever try to call has a listed number. Maybe it’s unlisted, because I try and call them.
I am not sure why we don’t get a telephone book with peoples cell phone numbers listed in them. You would think that would be more practical. I still see advertisements for people to put advertisements in telephone books. I am not sure people do that anymore, but they must. I don’t think they get a lot of exposure, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t throw out the telephone book the moment they get it.
Telephone books use a lot of paper. These days you’d think we would just do away with them. We could save some trees, and some space in our grandmother’s cupboards.

Fast Food

I have read that Americans have an obsession with fast food. I’ve seen enough headlines that I suppose I believe it. I myself have a habit of making a trip through the McDonalds drive thru every now and then, and I do it for one simple reason: the food tastes good. A lot of experts claim the reason we consume so much fast food is because we live busy lives that leave little time for preparing a meal. I have to disagree. I just don’t think people know how to cook any more. When I was a kid, we would go to my grandma’s house on Sundays. I remember how good her cooking was. I also remember how my mother’s cooking wasn’t as good. As I got older, I attributed the taste of my grandmother’s cooking as something of a sentimental thing rather than superior cooking skills. However, in recent years, I’ve had to revise my theory once more. My grandmother was simply a better cook. My mother, a fine cook herself, wasn’t as good however. And my sister barely knows how to cook at all. I am not exactly sure what to attribute the degenerating cooking skills to. My mother follows the same recipes as my grandmother did, but the food doesn’t taste the same. I suppose it could be the time, or maybe the love. Whatever it is, there’s a secret ingredient missing from today’s home cooking. I am bound and determined to figure out what it is. First, I need to take a trip to Burger King to mull things over.

Houses

They sure build big houses today. Every house I see being built is enormous. Then again people now days don’t have yards. They’ve taken up their entire yard with their big house. Houses have more rooms too. The house I grew up in had a small square living room, one bathroom, two small bedrooms, and a kitchen that had a kitchen table in it. My parents bought it right after they got married, and they still live in it today. It still has the same paint, the same carpet, and it suits them just fine.

Houses built today serve a different purpose. I don’t think people spend as much time outside anymore. They’ve brought the outside inside, or at least they’ve tried. Houses have dining rooms now, and thats where they put the table. That never made any sense to me, cook the food in the kitchen, and cart it into a whole other room. And then when you were done, you have to cart it all the way back. I suppose were not outside as much and could use the exercise. I’ll never understand dens either. Every den I’ve ever seen has a TV in it and perhaps a bookshelf or two and minus the mounted deer head, it looks and functions a lot like a small living room. Most people don’t go in their dens very much, or their family rooms for that matter. Now a family room is what exactly? From what I can see, it’s a living room without the TV. When we wanted to do family things when I was a kid, we turned off the TV, and stayed in the living room. But then again, we had families back then.

Most bedrooms have their own bathrooms today. We had one bathroom, and nobody ever locked the door when they were in it. All five of my brothers and sisters and I would brush our teeth at the same time. When I was seven and my four year old brother had to pee, we both peed at the same time. People don’t have basements anymore either. They have rec rooms. I suppose this is where you do stuff inside instead of outside now. I think people use them mostly for storage though, seems I have to step around a lot of stuff when I am in other people’s rec rooms. People are so lazy they won’t even do stuff inside anymore. And people sure do have a lot of TVs. Every bedroom has a TV now. The living room has a TV. The den has a TV. The rec room has a TV. The kitchen has a TV. Bathrooms have TVs. I know a lot of people who have TVs in their garages. I don’t think we need all those TVs. When we were kids, we had one, and it had four channels. We would get bored watching the same four channels and we’d go outside.

Salvatore (Tore) Allegrezza

I had the honor in January of 2006 to prepare a eulogy for Salvatore (Tore) Allegrezza, the grandfather of three of my friends. I only regret that a sales meeting I was at ran late and I was never able to read it at the funreal. I guess the words hold true for anyone who may have lost someone dear to them.

Few words, if any, can console those who must now share in life's most regrettable and inevitable milestone. I can only imagine how insignificant and feeble my words must be in attempting to ease the pain of those who have lost their beloved.

Perhaps comfort to those in mourning can come in knowing that Tore did not pass on in vain or alone but instead remembered, revered and honored in the company of so many who he had loved and those who had loved him.

Perhaps comfort can come in the hallowed words he spoke while with us, now sincerely and thoughtfully preserved in the memories of those who learned and listened.

And perhaps the hurt can be softened in remembering that each of his kin now carries with them the unequivocal qualities that made him uniquely theirs.

Many times in those final years, I witnessed myself, that out of the darkness and longing, his eyes would lighten as he spoke of days gone by and the kinship and camaraderie he felt with his grandkids and family. This reminds us that the shadow of the inevitable can grow long, and life's twilight can approach, but neither time, nor physical pain and anguish can extinguish the human spirit.

The soul and the spirit of Tore remained bright and alive just below the surface of a physical body that sat old and seemily by-gone.

So you can take comfort in knowing that death did not take Tore from us but merely severed the cold, dark, and heavy shackles of physical life and freed the everlasting and eternal spirit to be reunited with those loved and lost ones that have gone before.

Instead his spirit now resides in our hearts and memories were neither the length of time, the distance of miles, nor the vastness of sky and mountain ranges can keep them apart.

Does Happiness Exists Only with The Ignorant and The Oblivious?

Freddie Mac.

Fannie May.

Barney Frank

General Motors

Dodge

Plymouth

Chrysler

North Korea

Afghanistan

Iraq

Swine Flu

Aids

Cancer

Billy Mays

Michael Jackson

Farah Faucet

Credit Cards

Sub-Prime Loans

Debit

The Homeless

The Forgotten

The Old

The Big Oil Companies

School Shootings

Murder-Suicides

Mery-Killings

Abortion Rights

Medi-Cade

Medi-Care

Social Security

Osama Bin Laden

Hugo Chavez

Kim Jong IL

Trillion Dollar Deficit

Global Warming

Ebola Virus

Haunta Virus

The Plague

and the

Supervalcano under Yellowstone

The Two Week Notice

You’ve found another job. That’s wonderful. You’re excited and delighted at the chance to finally move on from that dead-end labor camp you’ve been going to everyday for the last who knows how long. Your boss is an idiot. The people you work with are a bunch of donkeys, and this one guy you’re pretty sure is a sex offender.

What’s your next step? Well to put in your two-week notice, right? This is, of course, the standard operating practice of thousands of people everyday who have decided to leave their jobs. You wouldn’t want your employer to frown upon you in the now twilight of your career with them, would you? Whoa there fella, stop right there! What are you doing???

Let’s consider an alternative situation, shall we?

The company, for which you work, is a dive of ghastly business practices, lousy management, and poor customer service, has decided they are no longer in need of your services. It seems, their bad business practices throughout the past several months or years, something of which you carry no fault for what-so-ever, has left their bottom line spoiled. An assortment of maladroitly supervised salesman, engineers, and other company brass has let golf outings and three hour lunches get in the way of their jobs.

Now you must go.

You see, for the past two weeks, without warning to you, your boss, along with a collection of other higher-ups have quietly and surreptitiously planning your demise. They have listed ads in the paper, internet, and craigslist, which have prompted several replies. The said interested are willing to work at lesser wages and benefits, and have already come to interview. Of these interview-ees, your smiling boss has chosen one in which to replace you. Your livelihood now sits in limbo. Your wife, your kids, and your home, all lie in complete turmoil. And yet, you are humbly unaware of the life altering, possibly life shattering, events that are to take place in the near future. Everyday, your boss strolls past you and gives you a friendly smile. Work seems slow, so you ask fi you might have anything to worry about, you are thinking of buying your lovely wife something real nice for Valentines Day, and you’re just checking. Your boss puts his hand on your shoulders and looks you square in the eye and with a re-assuring tone, declares, you have nothing to worry about, that you are an asset, that your position is unique and with a wink, and a smile you feel assured.

The next day at work, you arrive to find your boss has taken the day off. You clock in and take a few steps and a senior management type greets you. You’ve seen him at work, but this is the first time, and last time you will exchange words. He is carrying a large white folder, and regretfully announces that there have been some cuts, and you have been chosen to make the sacrificial blood letting. Your gift upon the alter is necessary for the survival of the company, and in a half-backward spin of words, he thanks you for your duty and you are hastily turned around and escorted to the door. You are not given a chance to collect your personal effects, but rather informed that you will need to make an appointment in the coming days to come in and gather your belongings. As quickly as it began, it is now over. In the span of only about one minute, you are now standing, hat in hand, in the parking lot of your former place of employment. Disbelief turns to anger as you drive home. How could they? What are they going to do now? You begin to laugh and wild scenarios play out in your head.

” Boy, they sure are screwed. Who’s going to perform your day to day duties?”, you chuckle slightly.

But you see, my dear friend, the company has had weeks to prepare themselves for this. They informed you of your demise, only after every “t” was crossed and every “i” was dotted. They had all their cards in line. The transition will be very smooth. Your replacement will begin Monday and with-in a couple of weeks, you will be forgotten. You will be nothing more than a distant memory, and then, no one will remember you at all.

Meanwhile, your life will be turned upside down. Your in your late thirties, early forties, finances were always an issue at home, and posed the only real strife between you and your wife, but now will consume and strain your marriage like never before. Your kid’s college fund will be raided to pay the mortgage. Your wife will take up a second job, while you search the want ads, which have shrunk to a sliver over the past year. You sell your two year old car for about four thousand under its blue book value, and buy your brother-in-law’s old beater he keeps around for a winter car. It’s all good though, because he happens to know a guy who is the foreman at the ball bearing factory, and as luck would have it, they are hiring. You get a job testing assembled bearings, and convince yourself that it’s no big deal because it’s just temporary, until you can find something more suiting. Meanwhile, the rest of the economy has slowed down and lay-offs have flooded the job searching market with thousands of individuals like you that will work anywhere. So you hold out. You search here and there, high and low, but nothing. Your new job is an hours drive from home and the company is in an economic slow down of its own, so they have you working ten to twelve hour shifts to cover for the people they’ve laid off. The whole situation really hampers your interviewing time. Meanwhile at home, your wife has secretly been talking to her sister who recently went through a divorce and has the name of her attorney, who more than anyone has convinced her that she is a victim of your shortcomings and is far better off without you. You get served your divorce papers on a Friday right before you get off work, and stay at your brother’s who lives an hour and half from your new job, that isn’t so new anymore because you been there a great unwanted year all ready. Your wife starts seeing a new guy about a month after she files, because she’s all ready wasted enough time with you, and wants to get on with her life. You cant figure out what she sees in him, because he makes less than you do at the bearing factory, but it doesn’t matter much because they have your 401k and twenty-five percent of your gross income in child-support, and ten percent of the rest in alimony to live off of. Your ex quits her job; I mean you’re doing enough work for the both of you anyway. With the extra burden, you decide to pick up some extra hours at the gas station on the way between work and your brother’s house that, he just informed you, is up for sale. Your brother sells his house in May, and tells you the new owners are moving in, in a month. You start looking for places near your works, mentally concreting the fact that you might be a bearing tester and gas station attendant for sometime.

Meanwhile, you’ve picked up some extra hours at the gas station, because all the apartments you can afford now are filled with illegal immigrants and recently released child molesters. You move into your new place and are thrilled because now you’re only ten minutes from either one of your jobs, which allows you to pick up even more hours at both. Its wonderful because you get your kids once a month, but are afraid to let them visit you at home because of the creepy guy who lives right next to you, so you settle for meeting them somewhere in the middle. They call you Duane now instead of dad and you find out you really have nothing in common anymore, and the visits become less, and less eventful. Late one night you’re pulling a double at the gas station, its your weekend to watch the ex-wife’s kids, because she’s with her boyfriend in Puerto Rico for a month, and you’ve stashed them at your mother’s house while you work the graveyard shift. Just after three o’clock a guy walks in and asks for a pack of Marb lights in a box, but you can barley understand him through his thick foriegn accent, but that doesn’t matter, because that’s not what he’s in there for anyway, which becomes rather evident when he pulls out a bat and clubs you in the head. As you’re laying now on the filthy floor of a quick mart working your day off, the assailant swings twice more for good measure as he steals the forty-two dollars out of the register, and flees off into the night. You don’t know it now, because your in a coma, but others can rest assure because the robber was caught a few miles down the road. He gets shipped back to Mexico and crosses the border again three months later just about the time you’re coming out of your coma. The late night beating leaves you drooling uncontrollably from your left side and a wicked bad eye twitch. You’ll need to wear corrective lenses for the rest of your life and piss in a bag, but you’re alive.

Your recent mis-hap has left you unable to work, but now you get to spend the remainder of your days watching “I Love Lucy” re-runs at the under budgeted government homeless shelter.

Which brings us back to our original piece.

Don’t ever put in a two weeks notice. They don’t give you a two weeks notice before they put you in a homeless shelter do they?

"The Tree of Liberty"

If they banned any kind of gun, criminals would ignore that law anyway. If the government confiscated the guns, it would merely prop up a huge underground black market for guns, flooding the streets with illegal weapons from arms dealers oversees. The criminal element will get their weapons regardless.
Cocaine is illegal and is the most controlled substance on Earth. It has huge, government agencies like the ATF, FBI, and DEA spending billions of dollars every year in a losing battle over drug importation and control. What makes us believe they could control the flow of illegal weapons into this country? Who is the victim of the bans?; the people who follow the law and unarm themselves.
There are about 276 million legally owned guns in the US right now, owned by about 220 million Americans! I often ask myself after hearing of a gun crime, 'how would an additional law have prevented it?'
Just my opinion, and at least for now, I still have a right to one.

"I Would Rather Go To Sleep Hungry, Than Wake Up In Debt"...Ben Franklin

I hardly imagine the founding fathers of this nation ever conceived that a disease, such as debt would rob individuals of their freedom. and those who remain debt free have been appointed a lifelong debt by their government. A debt so large relies unduly on the idea that there will always remain a class of individuals that have the monetary means by which the government to tax, and recover that debt. However, as this class's own wealth is raped, the thin and brittle concept of which to repay the bill owed becomes moot.

There will come a time when the people that have entrusted their freedom to such an avaricious government will become indentured servants, forced to work, and whipped by taxes, fees, levys, tolls, and dues. Their own personal debt will lock them into a prison, where the debt owed will become their sole purpose. They will cease to dream, cease to invent, cease to risk, cease to create, and cease to build. Their children will grow to learn of work as a means to pay a debt, instead of the rewards reaped from a vocation. A generation will pass, and a new school of thought will be learned, and an old belief that grew from a desire to stand independent, to forge an individual existence, and to live free.....will have died.