Think about this for one moment......

This song was written by James McMurtry back in 2004.  The funny thing is we weren't experiencing a recession at that time, but many people were hurting economically and especially from the war in Iraq.  Now, the words seem truer than ever....................

"We Can't Make it Here"

Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign

Sitting there by the left turn line

Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze

One leg missing, both hands free

No one's paying much mind to him

The V.A. budget's stretched so thin

And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war

We can't make it here anymore

     That big ol' building was the textile mill

It fed our kids and it paid our bills

But they turned us out and they closed the doors

We can't make it here anymore

     See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock

They're just gonna set there till they rot

'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack

Just busted concrete and rusted tracks

Empty storefronts around the square

There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere

You don't come down here 'less you're looking to score

We can't make it here anymore

      The bar's still open but man it's slow

The tip jar's light and the register's low

The bartender don't have much to say

The regular crowd gets thinner each day

       Some have maxed out all their credit cards

Some are working two jobs and living in cars

Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink

If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO

See how far $5.15 an hour will go

Take a part time job at one of your stores

Bet you can't make it here anymore

      High school girl with a bourgeois dream

Just like the pictures in the magazine

She found on the floor of the laundromat

A woman with kids can forget all that

If she comes up pregnant what'll she do

Forget the career, forget about school

Can she live on faith? live on hope?

High on Jesus or hooked on dope

When it's way too late to just say no

You can't make it here anymore

      Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store

Just like the ones we made before

'Cept this one came from Singapore

I guess we can't make it here anymore

      Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin

Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in

Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today

No I hate the men sent the jobs away

I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams

All lily white and squeaky clean

They've never known want, they'll never know need

Their sh@# don't stink and their kids won't bleed

Their kids won't bleed in the da$% little war

And we can't make it here anymore

      Will work for food

Will die for oil

Will kill for power and to us the spoils

The billionaires get to pay less tax

The working poor get to fall through the cracks

Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake

Let 'em eat sh$%, whatever it takes

They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps

If they can't make it here anymore

      And that's how it is

That's what we got

If the president wants to admit it or not (written in 2004)

You can read it in the paper

Read it on the wall

Hear it on the wind

If you're listening at all

Get out of that limo

Look us in the eye

Call us on the cell phone

Tell us all why

     In Dayton, Ohio

Or Portland, Maine

Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains

That's done closed down along with the school

And the hospital and the swimming pool

Dust devils dance in the noonday heat

There's rats in the alley

And trash in the street

Gang graffiti on a boxcar door

We can't make it here anymore

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(emphasis added)

issues around the time of XMAS

I saved up some money in the bank where it's hard for me to withdraw money out of.  I deliberately picked the Richland County Bank so that I am unable to take money out unless I make the big trip to see my parents.  Through the years, the money I saved up always comes in handy when I purchase gifts during XMAS. 

Christmas seemed to have setbacks this year, but Christmases past often have difficulties.  In 2006, Maribeth's mom died a few weeks before Christmas, and she often states that XMAS isn't that happy of a time.  This December we had 2 problems.

1.  Maribeth went to her car and absolutely, positively couldn't move her key.   The battery was messed up, the battery cable, ignition, it's wires - all messed up and needing replaced.  She had just sunk a very substantial sum of money getting all  of her brakes replaced.  I was pissed off with Firestone for charging so damn much money on brakes.  I want to write a letter to them b/c it's nonsense to gouge the consumer like they did to Maribeth.  Then when I was taking my dear father-in-law to dialysis, we passed at least 2 places that had decent deals on fixing brakes.

So why did she go to Firestone?

We have gone to the same Firestone store for years.  We have trusted them; they previously earned that trust!  Maribeth was shocked when she heard the estimate, and sometimes it's very human for a bad surprise to simply lead to "paralysis". What  I mean is the idea that she felt she didn't have options, and the shock prevented her from thinking of other places to go and exercise those options.  We trusted Firestone before!!!!!!  We don't now, damnit !

When the ignition "fritzed out", she certainly didn't want to go to Firestone and picked "Sal the Handyman" to fix the car.  He has 3/4 of the car done after 1 1/2 weeks.  The car is able to drive, but not so reliably with this missing part.  Sal told her not to drive, and she's smart enough not to take risks doing so.  He found the part and the hope is that it will be fixed by the end of the week.  Maribeth works her usual New Year's Day shift. The time and a half money certainly will come in handy.   I am hoping that I won't be driving her to work as I have a number times during this recent car failure.  Other times I walk to the train station (a little over a mile) as she drives my car to work some 20 miles away.   

Frankly, I feel bad for her.  She has sunk well over $1,000 into the 2005 Suzuki Verona.  I truly thank God for my lowly 2000 Chevy Cavalier.  It has 109,000 miles on it.  I bought the car when it was 4 yrs. old, and it had about 40,000 miles on it (give or take a few thousand).  There have been 2 times where the brake lines have leaked but the indicator light has adequately let me know about that in each instance.  I bought 2 new tires and the stupid bastards at Firestone didn't follow my instructions to rotate the tires after they gave me the tires.  No, they incompetently replaced the old rear tires with the laziness of putting 2 new tires on in the same place.    This is yet another reason why I will be writing them a letter of complaint and threatening to withdraw our family's business with them unless they make some very very sweet deals with us in the future.   Damn! The money we spent on car maintenance and repairs might have put one of the repair person's child through the 1st semester of jr. college.  What kind of nonsense are they practicing at bad Firestone?? Did they not hear that people are suffering from the recession.  That includes us especially since I have been ordered to work fewer hours at the firm. 

2.  Our new toilet that "Sal the Handyman" installed this fall suddenly did not work as  a toilet should.  So, on what was supposed to be  a very Merry Christmas morning, we opened presents early, and I went back to bed.  As soon as I experienced the comfort of a nice bed, I hear a shriek, "GET OUT OF BED IMMEDIATELY OR SOONER!!!!!!!!!!"

To our deep chagrin, the bathroom floor flooded with toilet water.  Inexplicably, no one had flushed the toilet.    We felt terrible because we knew what was coming next.  A visit from our unlucky neighbor immediately below us who had our toilet water streaming through her bathroom fan vent. 

Maribeth was yanking the water out of the toilet, and I turned the valve off as soon as I saw what was going on. I found items that would soak up the water and stop damage to our neighbors walls.  Within minutes, the fiance' to the  woman who owns the condo was videotaping the watery mess that was made.  Yet, it was a watery mess made very inadvertently. 

The following day, Sal and Maribeth took the toilet off to see what the hell was causing all of the problems.  There was good news and bad news.  They found the culprit 2 plastic forks.  The bad news is not having the slightest idea who the hell would put plastic forks in our toilet.  The dog?  the ever-present Jake, Ted's sidekick?  Both ideas were pretty implausible.  We  took some steps to prevent anything else from falling into that damn toilet. 

Oh and of course there were 2 necessary steps to take once the toilet worked well.  Sal, had to be paid for working on a Sunday, and he kindly did it without the traditional extra fee you would pay if a plumber worked on a Sunday.    Maribeth needed her due also.  So, she was patiently listened to as she explained what happens to one's stomach when you smell fecal matter. She was patiently listened to as she repeated the sad consequences of smelling this most foul substance, and she repeated the foul story no fewer than 3 more times. 

Hey, you can't be too hard on Maribeth, b/c her ex-husband (the writer of this post) didn't fix the toilet.  No, plumbing is not at all my function in life.  I am a pre-trial practitioner, a legal researcher, an investigator and a writer.  I would have just messed things up anyway.  I gave Maribeth one of my XMAS gifts which I received at the law firm.  She loves Starbucks, and I gave her the gift car I had received.  She'll love drinking a cappucino  after doing such a  good job fixing the toilet. 

Lord knows if  the insurance will help us. We know they'll pay for the neighbor's damage.  But our bathroom flooring is messed up badly.  Let's see if they'll actually give us compensation for our damage in a timely manner.  

Stay tuned............

Country Western and Garth Brooks comeback

Have you ever gone up to someone you were getting to know and asked them,  "what kind of music do you like?"
& you get those people that say, "Oh, I like all kinds of music"  Oh, yes, that makes them soooooo cosmopolitan, lmao.
I  WON'T tell you that I like all kinds of music.
I dislike 95% of rap music (and no, I won't call it "hip-hop", damnit) and I despise most Country Western music.  
Between the ages of 13 or 14 to 18 and then a # of years during college, I would have to wake up at 5 fuckin, o' clock in the morning and one of my family elders would add insult to injury and put Country Western music on.  YUCK!  That's all I can say, to all their dumb lyrics and even WORSE melodies. 

If you want real music, look at the pictues below  and there you are ! 

thoughts while working FAST

Since October, the biggest thing that has happened to me is the series of events – past, present, & future – that I can say the least about. I befriended someone who I met a long time ago, and we have renewed our friendship. My life has been enriched, and the future shows some optimism.

The dynamics between the parent and the adolescent is an interesting dynamic. There are stories of parents that have to limit the independence a 15 year old wants or even tries to demand. With our son, Andy, it’s different. We welcome the independence that he sometimes shows. He is an upright, conventional benevolent soul!

I’m contemptuous toward indiscriminate drug use, but Andy hates it even more. He worries about his tragic uncle who will go to prison later this month for drunk driving.  & come Dec. 15, when my brother has his trial, we all hope he pleads guilty.

Getting back to Andy, he diligently informs us every single time he stays late @ school for an after-school program. For the 2nd yr. in a row, his art teacher is Andy’s biggest backer and is glad he’s in the Art Club. We don’t worry about where he is b/c MB’s hospital, and my law firm are both leaning hard on both of us to come through during these trying times. Our jobs have demanded our leadership and experienced savvy we’ve learned for decades. Se, we didn’t have time to do Andy’s birthday party invitations and told him he better work on them. Andy’s party is Dec. 11, and this week, 1 morning when his Ma was already hard at work as a nurse, I discovered Andy had done nothing about his invitations.

Well, this was the 1st time he made birthday invitations. So, on that franatic, fast paced morning, while Ted and Bri prepared for school and left, Andy did the same, and I taught him to make a proper invitation. The 4 elements are as follows:

4 elements

It should answer the question 1. What? You’re invited to Andy’s birthday party

2. Where? Place, street address, town of party

3. When? Date, time, how long party lasts

4. A phone number of host in case invitee’s have questions. Thankfully, Andy knows where his phone is b/c he’s fielding the calls, not his parents.

Andy executed those instructions well. He made honor roll during the 1st quarter and we’re proud inspite the number of obstacles Andy has faced. He struggles w/ Typing (or whatever the hell they call it now when you learn how to use a computer keyboard in quick fashion, I think OFHS calls it “microcomputing”). But Andy struggles just like both of his parents struggled in typing. I think that’s the only C+ or B- Maribeth even earned in high school as she earned a full 4-yr. scholarship for nursing at Lewis University in Romeoville. & I got a mere C in typing my freshman year. I could only type 45 words per minute by the time the course ended in the spring but now w/ 33 yrs. of typing, computing/keyboarding, whatever the hell you wanna call it, I can type a better-than-average 60 words per minute.