Growing Up in "Flyover Country."

For those you who were born in California, or another of the Deep Blue States, and wonder how growing up in "Flyover Country" was altogether different, read on...

I remember vividly shooting one of my Dad's rifles at the ripe old age of five.  And I emphasize "one of."  For he had many rifles, and many shotguns, and many pistols.

In fact, Dad won the Missouri State Pistol Championship in both 1938 and 1940.  He was also a champion skeet and trap shot, and the winner of many rifle competitions.  Plus, he was a hunter of anything that walked, ran or flew.  

So I was introduced to guns at five years old.  That's when Dad let me pull the trigger on his .30-06.  I was gifted a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas at the age of 6.  And recevied a Stevens .22 single-shot rifle for Christmas at the age of nine.  Imagine having a .22 rifle at nine years old.  

And because my Dad's best friend was a guy named Kenney Frost, who owned the local Army/Navy store, with a substantial gun sales department, I was "given" to him as an intern.  To learn all about firearms.  And I did.  For years.  

I'd go to his shop after school and on weekends and he'd train me about guns.  I actually learned to repair and build custom varmint rifles (gophers, woodchucks, coyotes, etc.) to order for Kenney.  I don't know if those who ordered them from Kenney to be manufactured from scratch, actually knew a 13 or 14 year-old kid was making them in the back room, but they were.  That's where you order a wooden stock blank, a barreled rifle action, and all the other parts and pieces necessary to make a custom gun.  And then fit them together with lots of elbow grease over several weeks into a shiny new rifle.

If fact, I even built one for myself.  It was a 13 pound .270 Winchester small game rifle.  It was a rifle to behold!  My cousin Reinhard Fajen owned the best rifle stock business in the Country at the time, and he gave me the most beautiful Circasian Fiddleback walnut rifle stock blank anyone's ever seen.  It featured a full beavertail forend and scoop cheek piece.  Add to that it had a 10x power Lyman Wolverine telescopic sight and helium-filled Redfield Jr. scope mount.  I chose a Model 98 Mauser magnum bolt action and a 30" Timken steel bull barrel.  Add to that a fully-adjustable trigger with an Ace trigger shoe and you've got a rifle that can put five bullets into a playing card at 600 yards.  That's sub-minute of angle accuracy (1" per 100 yards), for those of you who care about such things.

Oh yeah, I still remember the recipe for my handloads.  That's where you shoot rifle cartridges and then reuse them.  You use the cases and primers and gunpowder and the necessary tools to remake ammunition after it's been shot.  I used Norma .30-'06 rifle cases necked down to .270 so they'd hold more powder.  I used 50 grains of Dupont #4350 smokeless powder and Peters primers.  And 110 grain open point Speer bullets.  This enabled me to obtain 3,200 feet per second performance with flat ballistics out to more than 200 yards.  And all this at less than 0.25 cents per shot.  A quarter.  That's damm cheap fun!  

I was also a member of two quick draw clubs.  That's where you wear a quick draw holster like you used to see on TV, and use an 1873 .45 Colt Peacemaker clone.  You slowly walk toward a man-shaped target with a light bulb on its head.  When the bulb lights up, you draw and shoot a wax bullet propelled only by the primer.  That still propells the wax "bullet" at about 400 fps.  And the clock determines how many pieces of a second it took you to accurately respond and hit the target.  With about a quarter of a second as normal  reaction time, I would average about .320 of a second to observe, draw and shoot. 

Great fun!

And a great afternoon for me back then would be to throw a few guns in the back seat and drive down a gravel road until I found the city limits sign.  Then I'd get out and fill my .22 cowboy revolver with six shots and throw the paper box they came in out as far as I could.  Then I'd draw quickly and shoot at it.  And keep on doing so until I ran out of bullets or the box was so far out of sight I could no longer hit it.  And then do it all over again.

So I owned more than 50 firearms when I was finally drafted into the U. S. Army.  I gave or sold most of them away, figuring I'd likely be killed in the "Nam."  I even posted the highest basic training rifle range score in Fort Leonard Wood's history.  998 out of 1,000.  Even after 50 years, I think that high score still stands today.

And oh yeah, I entered the Schwarzwalden (Black Forrest) Shooting Club's 1968 Olympic qualifications finals competition.  I came in third.  Had I placed first or second, I'd have qualified to represent Germany in the '68 Olympics.  I always wondered how my commanding officer would have received that bit of news.  An American G.I. competing in the Olympics for a foreign country.  Somehow I think that might have caused a stir.  Hmmmm...

I tell you all of this to explain why some of us who weren't born and raised in Democrat, high population states know their way around guns.  And horses and cows and wild boars and so much more.  And why we take it as a personal insult when our governor, and the governor of the other wussie states, sign executive orders limiting our ownership and use of the firearms they deem dangerous.  Or all black and scary looking.  I personally don't care what they deem.  Perhaps if they'd had an upbringing like mine, and like my neighbors, and like the people born and raised in the South and Mountain states and the Big Sky states and all the others with country you can hunt in,  consider as routine.  Normal.  Usual.  Places where they value their 2nd Amendment Rights and are willing to fight to protect them. 

We consider guys like BoyGuv ("Hairgod") Newsom as a shining example of pussyhood.  And that fat dude in Illinois.  And the one in Colorado.  And in the 22 states of our Union where they attempt to outlaw firearms.  Maybe they should be required to take firearm owners and users courses when they're elected.  So they'd know what it's like to grow up like a Man.  Like an American.  Not like a lily livered girly man, as Schwartzenhoozits used to call them.  Before his Kennedy-raised wife threatened to withhold her female favors if he didn't start acting more like a Democrat.  

Sorry to post about guns so often for those of you who "know."  Who know what us gun owners and users know.  But for those of you who don't, it's time to learn what the rest of us consider "normal."

As a remember, here's what the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution guarantees:  

"...the Right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

God Exists!

I was headed in to the infusion center for my fourth, and last, chemo treatment.  

My fourth chemo series, and the last one of the fourth in that series.  Dammm, was I happy.  And relieved.  It was finally over.

Chemotherapy, if you haven't had the (dis)pleasure, is what they hit you with when you're diagnosed with cancer.  Or perhaps radiation.  Either is bad.  They both suck.

Lung cancer, in my case.  Metastatic Small Cell Lung Cancer, which is the worst, fastest growing, and most aggressive type, they tell me.  Sort of like hearing from yout doctor, "You have ebola.  It's the very worst sort of virus around anywhere.  And there's no cure for it.  You'll die from it within weeks.  And it will be painful.  There's nothing more we can do for you.  Call if you have any questions.  We have a tee time to get to.  So have fun."

The day I got the diagnosis, I went home and Googled "metastatic small cell lung cancer."  Google told me I had 3 or 4 months to live.  Gulp!  I closed the Google app and vowed not to check it again.  So even though my sainted registered nurse wife and I created and managed the first emergency medical service of its kind, and ran it for nearly 40 years, I knew painfully little about cancer.  My knowledge was all centered around kidney failure.  And End Stage Renal Disease.  And treating desperately ill patients who were in need of acute dialysis treatments.  We figured one time we treated about 10,000 patients in those 40 years.  Who would have had little other chance without us.

In short, even though I'd spent 50 years in medicine,, my knowledge about it was half a mile wide and an inch deep.  Except for End Stage Renal Disease.  Which I knew more about than the doctors who treated it.  And even though I played a doctor on TV, the last person I'd ask about treating cancer would be me.  Especially if it was my cancer.

So my oncologist, a really smart 40-something babe who chose to take me on as a patient, mapped out my treatment plan.  She lowered the dose a bit, choosing not to give these aging bones of mine the full wattage.  And put me in the hospital.  

The idea is to kill the fast growing cells.  And the fastest growing cells are cancer cells.  But they also shut down your immune system.  So she customized my dosage to keep me alive.  Thank God.  For if she'd hit me with the full 100% of the normal dosage, I'm sure I'd have collapsed into a heap of protoplasm.  For chemotherapy is the gnarliest, nastiest, meanest, awfulest and most toxic thing anyone can do to you.  It's poison.  And it could kill you if they screw up the dosage.  It's like months of the flu, with body aches, projectile vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, and deathly sickness in the name of wellness.  

How ironic.

Anyway, my four daughters overrode my vote to handle the whole thing myself, and chose to each take a day and drive me to my treatment.  It was four days of chemo, then one week of hoping you'd just go ahead an die, and a week of more of less normalcy.  Normalcy with cancer, that is. Then back to them trying to kill you.  

This went on for 5 months.  During which I many times wondered if I'd chosen correctly to have chemo.  It's that bad.  But my daughters won out, over my veto, and thank God they did.  For however determined I was to handle it all my self, I doubt I could have.  So they drove me there, stayed with me while they tried to kill me, then brought me home.  And tucked me in, if necessary.  And sometimes it was... 

We had a saying back home about things like this.  It went sorta' like "Shot at and missed, sh*t at and hit."

Thanks to Tiana, Dana, Lauren and Jennifer for being the best daughters a father could ever have.  I truly wouldn't have made it through without you.

Back to my last chemo treatment.  It was Tiana's turn.  She drove me to the infusion center, dropped me off and parked her car.  I played with my phone while she did.  Then I put it in my travel bag when she returned.  She pushed me in to the center and to my chair.  A big, gray thing that reclined should I wish it to.  And I almost always did.  I got into the chair, put my travel bag on the tray table, got comfy, and told Tiana I'd call her in 4 hours or so when my treatment ended.  She walked out of the center just as I reached for my phone.

It wasn't there!

Tiana was gone.  And I had no phone!  I hurriedly took all the travel stuff out of the bag.  The earphones, the  bottle of water, the Compazine, the tissues, a book and magazine.  Nothing.  I looked between the cushions of the recliner.  Nothing!  I asked the nurses to look outside around the entrance, and in the waiting room.  They did.  Nothing.  I looked in the bag again.  Same story.  I was sick.  I was already sick, it being the fourth day in a 4-day chemo treatment series, but this made me even sicker.  Instead of being able to go home and go to bed, I'd have to go to the Verizon store and blow 3 hours and a $1,000 on a new one.  And without having an existing phone to transfer across all the data, I'd have to reinvent my entire life into the new one.  While being sick.  

The thought made me even sicker.

I'd spent 30 minutes looking for the phone and was resigned to my fate.  I didn't even know Tiana's phone number!  Figuring I had nothing to lose, I looked to the sky and said, "God, I know you're busy.  But if you or one of your angels has a moment, I'd sure appreciate it if you could help me find my phone."  

Just then, not one second later, JUST AS THE LAST WORD LEFT MY LIPS, one of the nurses said to me, "Well, we could always call the number."  

I said, "Probably do no good, but go ahead if you want to.  The ring tone is the theme sone from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."  And it's really loud.  Probably do no good.  But give it a try if you wish."  I thought "go ahead if you must."  I was that bummed out.   

I held out no hope, figuring that God was far too busy to help find a phone.  Especially MY phone!  It's not like I've been a choir boy, ferGod'sake!  And without Him at this point, I felt there was zero chance my phone would show up.  

She dialed the number.  Just then, that song began to blare under my butt.  Loud!  "Doodle, oodle, ooh, doo doo, doooo.  Doodle oodle ooh, doo doo DOOOOO!"  

I nearly jumped out of the chair.  The other 50 or so sickies in the center nearly jumped out of their chairs, too.  The nurse who called the number clapped with glee!  She then got on her knees and began to try and find the phone.  She dug between the cushions of my chair as much as she could.  No luck.  She found a coat hanger, took it apart and straighted it out so she could use it to dig.  She finally found it waaay down between the cushions and way back where it would never have been found.  Ever!  She was able to pull it out, thankfully.  She presented it to me with a bow and the whole center apdplauded.  I returned the bow, too, as you could imagine.

Can you say RELIEVED!

Although I've always believed in God, I'd never gotten so close to proving His presense then as I did that day in the infusion center.  I doubt He did it personally, though.  Probably St. Michael.  Or the patron saint of phones, whoever that might be.  Or maybe my own special, personal angel, which the Bible tells us we all have to look after us.  

But we never needed him or her like I did that day inthe center.  And boy, did I ever!  I took it as proof that God exists, and He exists to help us in our time of need.  Like I experienced that day.  Maybe you'll think it wasn't all that important.  Trust me, to me that day, it was.  

And for me, at least, it's absolute proof.  There is a God!  And He helped me find my phone.  And I'll pay it forward the very first chance life gives me.  I hope it's for you...

Epilogue:  I'm pleased to say I'm in remission and undergoing immunotherapy.  It's an hour-long infusion every three weeks.  I'm in debt to my personal doctor for demanding I get a CT scan because I'm a reformed smoker.  I asked my oncologist how long I'd need to keep on that schedule.  She said, "Forever."  I laughed inwardly.  I'm pretty sure her idea of forever and my idea of forever, are really diifferent  "forevers."

A Birthday Card to America

I'd like to say I looked forward to joining the Army, being shipped 8,000 miles away, and shooting at little short guys I'd never met.  And hoped to never meet.

I'd like to say that but I can't.

What I can say is I did my very best to avoid the draft.  I attended five colleges, but chose not to actually attend classes.  They seemed to expect that.  I was too busy shooting pool and picking the pockets of folks who thought they could pick mine.  That kept my 2-S deferment active until I reached the magic 5 and 1/2 years, at which time my draft deferment ended.  And I received a letter from the Gubmint which opened with, 

"Greetings."

Choosing not to permit them to draft me, I enlisted to become a sniper.  Until they told me my glasses would steam over in 100 degree heat and 100% humidity while I was low-crawling though two foot-tall grass.  Fortunately, I'd done well on my entrance exams.  Well enough for Army Intelligence (no laughter here) to rescue me.  And my amazing Army career then began to unfold.  Ending with me being awarded the Army Commendation Medal.

Ummm, wha...?

To back up a bit, I was born in Kansas City, but raised in the tiny town of Bosworth, Missouri.  A town of 200 people.  Then my folks moved me to Chillicothe, which was proud of its 9,800 residents.  So my view of the U.S. of A. was seen until my young twenties through the prism of Small Town, America.

I managed to grow older without growing up, I'm afraid to say.  I had the wickedest pool cue, the prettiest girlfriend, one of the the fastest cars in the county and no sense at all.  I thought everybody wore a money belt and carried a gun.  I had no idea at all what it meant to be an American.  No sense of patriotism.  No sense of pride in my County.  

No sense at all.

The Army took away my name and gave me a number.  They worked me like a rented mule.  And taught me there were other folks besides me in the world.  Other men from other cities and states.  Other men of other races and religions.  Others who thought differently and acted differently than me, but were still good people.  Others with whom I might just have to share a foxhole someday.  Others upon whom I had to rely.  And they upon me.  I never had that feeling before.  

I learned that America had fought for its independence.  And fought another 200 wars and battles and skirmishes and police actions to keep all us Americans safe.  And only guys like me stood between our friends and families and those who wished to do us harm.

I learned pride in my unit.  And pride in my company.  And pride in my battalion and brigrade.  And pride in  the U. S. Army.  And more than that, pride in my Country.  I learned that, although it's not perfect, ours is the best Country on Earth.  The only Country where your freedoms are granted by God, and are worth fighting for and to keep.  

I came home from the Army grown up.  And ready to assume my responsibilities to my family and my Country.  Whereas before I was a selfish pool hall rat, interested only in myself, I came home from the military reformed.  Ready to finish school and get a job and get married and start a family and do what I could for my friends and neighbors and community and Country. 

The Army did that to and for me.  I shudder to think what I'd have become had I not been conscripted.  But I know what I became because of it.  

America ceased drafting its young men and women after its disastrous Viet Nam foray.  Since 1975 we've been an all volunteer military.  No longer will your bunkmate be representative of all the cities and states of America.  It will be representative only of those who chose to enlist and even stay for life.  They're older, wiser, better educated, and an all-around fiercer fighting force.  But it's not the same as what I experienced.  And I recommend we return to that time.  I recommend we resume the draft.  So that, like 22 other countries, we require our high school graduates to give back to their country two or more years of their lives.      

Think back to how smart (or dumb) you were at 18 years old.  And think back at how much smarter you were a couple of years later.  And then imagine how much better prepared you'd be for life if you'd have grown up while defending your country. 

And then let your Country pay you back by paying for your education and helping you buy your first house and providing you with continuing health care. 

It worked for me.  It could work for you and your kids.  Just remember on this 250th Anniversary of America, your freedom was bought and paid for by those who wrote a blank check for everything up to and including their lives.  And more than one million of them died while paying for it.  Think of them while you enjoy the day they bought for you with their lives.

I've been to 47 countries.  And I can tell there's nowhere like America.  Our Great Experiment in Freedom has proven successful.  We've had a small "d" democracy longer than any other country on Earth.  And we're positioned to go on for another 250 years.  With your patriotism, and the dedication of those in our military, we'll surely achieve it...

Happy Birthday, America!

Don't Tax You, Don't Tax Me...

           ...Tax the Man Behind the Tree.

                                                           Benjamin Franklin, 1789  

If we go way, way back, we find that our progenitors, the homo erectus from which we all sprung, were so-called "hunter/gatherers."

They followed herds of animals, killing one every now and then for its meat and its hide.  They did that for several hundred thousand years.  Starting about 400,000 years ago.  More or less.  The archeologists and the paleontologists and the various "ologists" continue to argue about just when they first appeared, but let's just agree it was a long time ago.

They would pitch their camp, using animal skins for their tents.  Sometimes they would gather with other hunter/gatherers and camp together for mutual safety.  Keeping that saber tooth tiger at bay, doncha' know.  And sometimes they would form a group to hunt and camp together.

It wasn't long before these camps grew to several dozen, even hundred, with the hunters doing the hunting, and their womenfolk doing the cooking and seiwing and other chores.  

And before long these encampments were so large they needed to elect a mayor.  Or chieftain.  Somebody to establish rules and regulations governing the actions of all these campers.  And then they hired a sheriff to keep the peace.  And other foks to help run things.  Pretty soon we had a town.  And then they needed to enact taxes to help pay for all the people they had running things.  And that's where I being today's diatribe...

Did you know that our first taxes were 3% of everything over $800 a year?  The Democrats who ran Abe Lincoln's Administration were responsible for that.  It was to help pay for the Civil War.

And then our first Progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, decided to help pass the Tax Revenue Act of 1913.  It taxed our citizens at ther rate of 1% of all income over $8,000 a year.  The die was cast.

And then Roosevelt decided to make that flat tax progressive, with more taxes being levied on those with greater income.  Providing a disincentive to work harder and a reason to cheat.  And that's where we now find our selves. 

Did you know that the top 1% of our income earners pay 38.8% of all income taxes?  And that the top 25% pay 75% of all income taxes?  And that the bottom 50% of our citizens pay only 3.3% of our income taxes?  And yet, the Progressives among us continue to bleat about the "rich" paying their "fair share?"  Are they smoking some of those funny little cigarettes?

So you take a job.  And then get your first pay check.  You'll be smacked in the face with the realization you only receive about 75% of your actual pay.  The rest goes to income taxes, Social Security taxes, and all the other taxes your state chooses to levy.  It's been said that if we were forced to actually write a check on April 15th to the IRS for our taxes, there would be a mass revolt.  Torches and pitchfolks, to be sure!

And then you go buy a cup of overpriced coffee.  And pay 10% for the privelege of paying for it.  Or a new car.  Which now averages $51,140.  That tax means the state gets $5,000 for allowng you to buy that car.  

Or you buy a fishing license.  There's a tax on that.  Or a hunting license.  You can't be a hunter/gatherer today without paying the state for the privelege.  Think about that!  

Or you can live in California and pay the highest personalf income tax of 13.3% of your pay over a certain amount.  In addition to the Federal tax rate of 28.9%.  Add to that your property taxes, which for some is more than their mortgage payment, and you might wind up with a mere pittance of your total earnings.

And then you die.  If you croak in CA or NY or IL or other states that want to pick your bones on the way out, your heirs may have to pay as much as 50% of your estate to The Man.  Or, like CA, you might have to pay 5% of your total Net Worth if you're worth a $Billion or more.  That little craziness is on the ballot this November.  That's why the majority of our 200 $Billionaires are all moving to Texas, or Florida, or Tennessee, or any of the other 27 states that charge no income taxes.  They now pay 51% of all of California's income taxes.  Who do you think they'll be coming after once they go?

Take a look at Las Vegas.  It used to be that you could go there and buy a shrimp cocktail for $0.99.  And dinner for $4.95.  And a room for $15.00.  And then the corporations got involved, like MGM Grand and Ceazars Corp.  They bought up all the casinos on Las Vegas Blvd. and started trying to milk you for every last nickle.  They nick you for $50.00 to park your car.  And $25.00 for a cocktail.  And $185.00 for dinner.  That's why nobody's going there anymore.  

California is Vegas writ large.  Remeber what Mark Twain once said:

 "Trying to tax your way to prosperity is like standing in a bucket and pulling yourself up by the handles."

P.S.  Will the last one out please turn off the lights?

Change...

Change for the sake of change, is not necessarily good.

Nor necessary.  

Let me give you an example.  The very last American car with hand crank windows was the 2025 Jeep Wrangler.  This year's Wrangler comes standard with power windows.  As well as every other American car and truck.  

Why?  For purposes of standardization.  To stock both hand crank and power window lift assemblies is costly to the manufacturers.  They don't know how many of each to order or stock, thus increased costs.  So the manufacturers order only power window assemblies from their suppliers.  And then fold the cost of power windows into their new car price tags.  Like they're doing you a favor.  And you keep on buying them.

Is that a good thing?  Depends upon whom you ask.  For me it is.  I can remember having to stretch waaay over the seat to reach the far right window so as to crank it down.  For those lazy summer drives with the wind in your hair.  

But those power asemblies often go bad.  And that's a $600 dollar repair charge.  At least.  And they add extra weight.  As do every other motorized button you push that does something for you you could easily do for yourself.

And they add an extra cost you might not want to spend.  My first new car was a 1962 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport 409 cube, 409 horse.  4-speed, posi-trac, bucket seats.  Honduras maroon with black interior.  $2,824.00 out the door.  And it weighed only 2,890 pounds.  Of course, it had no air bags or anti-lock brakes or any other modern safety gear.  And they all add weight.

As in, the average new 4-door sedan weighs at least 4,200 pounds.  That's 1,400 pounds more than my '62  Impala.  Is that good?  You have to buy extra $6.00 a gallon (California) gas to cart all that extra weight around. 

And the average new car costs $51,190.  With $750.00 a month payments for 84 months.  That's not a good change.  Not for me, not for you.  

And when I was coming up we knew that next year's car would be bigger, faster, more powerful, prettier, and handle better.  With 18 colors to choose from.  Pink and lime green and a nice toasty brown.  Today?  Every car looks the same, next year's car won't be any better, it won't be faster or handle better, and it for sure won't be lighter or cost less.  In fact, it just might be worse.  Heavier and slower and guzzle more gas.  And 80% of all new cars are black, silver, or blue.  Have those changes been for the better?

I'd say no.

Another one?  Sure.

I remember when I was a kid, back when Christ was a corporal, there was one thing that held true to every family, no matter whether they were Black or White, rich or poor, or from the North or the South.  Come dinner (or supper) time, every member of the family had to have their ass in a chair around the dinner table or they didn't eat.  How's that for a sentence?

There was no Internet.  No cell phones.  No laptops.  No Facebook or Google or X or Instagram or TicTok.  And only 3 channels and they were all black and white.  No place to have your face except looking at your mom and dad. And sister Kate and brother Mike.  You spent that half hour catching up with your family.  About the happenings around your house.  And then  you went off to study or out for a date.  But you never, ever missed those few moments.  Have we progressed?  

I'd say no.  

We now live in our own little bubble, completely divorced from our family and friends.  Or even wife or husband.  I've said for years that the 'Net is the bane of our existence.  That it will bury us.  And we should sh*tcan it.  Today.  We should go back to the days when family and friends came first.  When we went out to meet girls instead of hoping our dating sites would bring us a girl- or boyfriend.  Face it.  We've devolved.

Just because you can order a thing from Amazon and have it delivered before sunrise tomorrow doesn't mean you should.  And just because Elon can cause a rocket booster to bring itself back to Earth in one piece doesn't mean we should care.  Good for him, not necessarily for us.  

There is almost exactly twice the number of souls in Armerica now as of the day I was born.  And we're paying a price for that crowding.  We are less friendly.  And helpful.  And caring.  And more self-centered.

I fondly recall the nights will my girl in a Pizza Hut consuming a large, 3-topping pie, a carafe of White Zinfandel, and walking out with change from a $20.00.  After leaving a good sized tip. And then heading for the drive-in movie just as the sun goes down.  I remember seeing Dirty Dancing and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as a double feature.  Windows all cranked down, eating popcorn and drinking Cokes.  With the breeze blowing through our car.  I pine for the good ol' days.  They'll never come back, and that's a shame.  And those who never experienced them don't know what they're missing.

So I say get back to having dinner at 6:00 with your family.  Then turning off the TV and shutting off your cell phones and playing Monopoly with your clan.  You just might enjoy it...

 

The Worst Investment You Can Make.

If you read the Chuckmeister's bleatings, you know I'm not in favor of today's higher education process.  Not what it teaches, how it teaches it, and how much it costs.

The big name universities and colleges that cost at least an arm to attend.  Upwards of $30,000 a year for tuition at state schools, and up to $90,000 a year at the Ivy League institutions.  There are 23 University of California universities, which report that you can expect to spend $150,000 for your 4-year education.  Tuition, fees, housing, food and books.  Not including a car to get there, or the gas to put in it.

For what?  They have professors that all to often profess anti-American vitriol that just might brainwash your little sons and daughters.  You send them off to learn, and they come home as socialists.  Or worse.  That, in my opinion, is a bad investment.

And as a college graduate, I'm quite familiar with what you must do to get that all important sheepskin.  To wind up finally able to hold it up to prospective employers, secure in the fact that it will grant you an extra few $Tens of Thousands a year in salary.  And a quick rise to the executive suite.

You expect wrong.

I'm here to finally provide you with some evidence that I was right all along.  The Secretary of Education's office just dropped a stastistic that should chill those of you who are paying through the proboscis for your kids' education.  My research just came up with the answer to all-important question:  How many new college graduates land a job in their major field of study, as of 2025?  Ya' ready?

                            31%

That's the good news.  It was only 20% in 2024.

And worst yet, more than 51% are working in a field for which a college degree is not necessary!

That should scare the crap out of whomever is paying for their student loans!  They have to work to pay their rent, and the job they trained for either no longer exists, or its already occupied.  Only those who have majors in engineering, medicine, nursing, laboratory sciences, pharmacy and law can count on a job when they graduate.  Those with degrees in social sciences, communications, or other non-specific majors will, as I've wryly offered in the past, will be asking, "Would you like fries with that?"

The Harvard Business Review had a article a couple of years back that indicated fully one-third of the jobs today's college attendees are attending college to attain, will no longer exist by the time they get their degree.  Artificial Intelligence is erasing many of the jobs we've long believed will always exist.  No longer.

If you wish your kid to get a degree, my suggestion is for them to go to a junior college for two years.  Get the requireds out of the way on the cheap.  By then they'll likely know what they want to do when they grow up, and then have them go to a college or university to attain it.  But by then they'll also find out whether it will still exist by the time they do.

That last part is uber important.  The Harvard Business Review recently reported that fully 40% of all the jobs in major fields of college study will not exist by they time one graduates.  Artificial Intelligence is eliminating entire career fields while we watch.  

I say go to college if you'll graduate with a license to practice a skill for which a degree is necessary.  Law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, or engineering are classic examples.  A major in Medieval Lesbian Poetry is not.  Nor is psychology, finance, social sciences, computer programming, or so many other yesterday's news major fields.

Think about it.  UPS starts their truck drivers at $176,000 a year.  A degree in social sciences starts at $56,000 a year.  A full-time job in a California McDonald's pays $48,000 a year. You make the choice.  

And then prepare to live with it... 

Poor Puree (Part Deux)

My spleen is so large it needs venting several times a day.  And requires me to write about those ventings at least once a week.  So here goes...

I come from an era where very little pissed me off.  And that which did, I did something about.  Today?  There's so many things that piss me off, there's simply no way to resolve it all.  But my A.I. therapist tells me to cough up that hairball and let everyone know how I'm feeling.  I've therefore picked three more you might enjoy reading about.

1.  Mail-In Election Ballots:

I awoke to a raging blizzard that early November morning.  I was 9 and my Dad had told me to get dressed as he was going to drive me to school.  He wanted to show me something special on the way.  I would have normally mounted my new Schwinn Black Phantom* for the 10 block ride.  But that day I'd be riding with Dad. 

I jumped into the car quickly to get out of the snowstorm.  Dad then drove me the few blocks it took to reach our nearest poling place.  We saw the line around the block of people waiting to vote.  In a blizzard.  All wearing winter coats and hats, with scarves wrappped tightly around their faces.  Dad said the only thing we owe our Government is to vote.  To show up and stand up and express our preference via a vote.  Just like the several dozen waiting in line that day.  

That memory sticks with me like glue.  

Dad had scarlet fever as a kid, so his heart was too weak to enlist in the Big War.  In spite of his illness he volunteered at the Sunflower Ordinance Plant in Kansas to build the 500 pound bombs our boys dropped on Germany.  He was that patriotic.  And I got my patriotism from him.  Voting where I came from wasn't for a week.  Or a month.  Or, like California, for a season.  Voting was a day.  And that's how it should always remain.  

Just like Florida, which has 23 million residents yet counts votes in one day.  California mails ballots to everybody, plus a few extra million just in case.  And then counts votes until they have all they need to win.**  Maybe someday someone will turn California back around to the place it used to be when I got here.  But until then, it reeks of socialism.  And its residents seem to be so accustomed to being mistreated by those it hires and pays to serve them, they keep on voting them back in.  It's like an advanced case of "Stockholm Syndrome."  You're taken hostage and kept until you fall in love with your captors.  And then forget what it was like when you had freedom.  

I arrived here exactly 50 years ago.  Back when it was a center-Right State.  Remember, we had two terms of Ronnie Reagan, two terms of Pete Wilson, two terms of Deukmajian, and two terms of Ahhnold Swartzenhoozits.  And then 16 straight years of all Democrats, all the time.  16 years of Democrat governors.  16 years of Democrats in statewide offices.  And 16 years of the Legislature being 2/3rds supermajority Democrat, so they could pass anything they wanted.  And they have.  Some of the dummest damm laws one could imagine.  Look around you.  This is what you get if you vote Democrat in November...

2.  Sanctuaries:

There's a "Supremacy Clause" in our Constitution. That means the Federal Gubmint takes charge should state laws and Federal laws bump into one another.  Such as regards immigration, to include who gets in, and who goes out. 

Even so, there's 256 counties, cities, townships, and villages in our Great Country which have declared themselves "sanctuaries" from Federal immigration laws.  Think about that.  They've decided to pick and choose which Federal laws they wish to obey, and which they do not.  And they can't do that.

Sort of like a Chinese restaurant.  One from column "A," and two from column "B."  And surprisingly, the Feds haven't made them pay a price for their intransigence.  Yet.  Although the Feds are now considering pulling all immigration and enforcement personnel from airports in sanctuary cities.  Such as New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Lost Angeles.  Just in time for the Olympics.  

This action would keep international passengers from disembarking in those cities.  Depriving those cities of hundreds of millions of $Dollars they receive from those services.  I'm hoping they will. Maybe they can be coerced into following the law.  By holding a symbolic gun to their socialist heads.  I doubt it, but maybe.

Just imagine if we, the public, were to treat those cities' laws the same way.  You get stopped for speeding and you tell the cop you've declared a "sanctuary" from their driving laws.  Or refuse to pay their property taxes until they start acceding to Federal law.  The reason tens of millions of illegal aliens have set up housekeeping in sanctuary cities is because of their posture on following Federal law.  

Maybe it's time we make them pay.  I think we should.

3.  HOA's:

I'm betting you'll be surprised when I tell you how many of your neighbors and mine are living under the cruel and regimented thumb of an HOA.  That stands for "Home Owners Association," doncha' know.  And the answer is...

                              35% 

Yes friends, one-third of us live in concentration camps with neatly manicured lawns.  With homes all painted the same shade of tan, and mailboxes all pointing the same direction.  And back yards free from swing sets and bird feeders.  And God help you if your property is different in any way from the HOA rules and regs.  If so, they'll fine you into the Stone Age.  Or, only $100 at a time, now that the courts have gotten involved.  It used to be $1,000's at a time until the courts' recent ruling.  

Truth is, HOA's boards of directors are made up mainly of those who never had any authority of any kind in their entire lives.  They were the postal carriers, and the secretaries, and the cashiers from Wal-Mart.  They always had a boss telling them what to do.  And they didn't like it.    

And then they retired and moved into an HOA-managed development.  Then ran for the board of their HOA, got a clipboard and a pencil and a ruler, and started looking for violations at YOUR home.  They're filled with venom and fueled with righteousness.  They're finally able to talk back to somebody for the first time in their lives.  To order folks around.  And they're going to take it out on you.  In spades.

Please, Fellow Patriots, do yourself a favor and make sure there's no HOA running things in the home you're thinking about buying.  I didn't, and wound up being pursued by a retired professional quilter (!) all around my kitchen for trying to install solar panels on my roof.  She yelled at me for fully 30 minutes after having been awakened by a hammer falling at 7:05 a.m., 5 full minutes after their legal starting time.  

She then called the sheriff and highway patrol.  And the city's permitting office to see if the job had been officially approved.  Before long there were 2 Samoan solar panel installers, 4 HOA board members, their poor, mistreated husbands, and a sheriff's deputy and a policeman in my back yard.  Trying to figure out if the installers could start installing. The HOA's rules said they could.  The quilter broke down and admitted herself for psychiatric treatment. 

I've owned 12 homes in 4 states and never before had an HOA trying to ruin my life.  The good news is there's not too much of it left, so this problem will naturally go away before long.  Make sure it doesn't happen to you.

So these things piss me off.  Maybe you too.  And I intend to keep writing about them until they stop.  It's cathartic.  It makes my spleen feel better.  Maybe yours too.  Or maybe you're piss off-free and just need to read how others are suffering.  If so, keep reading.  It's good for us both...

*   That bike cost me $120 of my newpaper route money.  And it was so special then its worth more than $3,500 today.  Wish I had it back.

**  I attended Rep. Dana Rohrbacher's relection party at Skosh Monahan's one night awhile back.  Back when Orange County, CA was turning from bright red to purple.  He was so far ahead on Election eve that we all toasted his return to Congress.  Where he'd  been for 30 years.  Excepppppt, two weeks later a ballot harvester pulled up in front of the Secretary of the Election's office to drop off 250,000 ballots.  Which put Dana's opponent into the lead.  Like what just happened to Pratt in Lost Angeles.  They just keep on counting until they get it right.  Remember the Golden Rule:  He who has the gold, rules...