The Long Road Back

Today I got a call from my manager at the hotel. He asked if I could work tomorrow night. Could I? Of course!




Yesterday he called and asked if I could work for a few nights in April. Absolutely!



I hope the economy has begun to recover enough that we can all begin the long road back (pictured is Oyster Rocks Road leading to the Broadkill River – I took it this morning.) I have never experienced in my lifetime such a bad economy that affected so many people.



I have lived through recessions before but they never affected me. I always had a good paying job at the bank. But, I like many others of my generation were “outsourced”, “right-sized”, and “job eliminated” before we could reach our normal retirement. I was one of the fortunate few because I was able to make lateral moves throughout the rest of my career. Others, of course, were not so fortunate.



I don’t know of one person in my peer group who was able to reach normal retirement age at their long term job. Not one person. That’s saying something.



I thought I had dodge a bullet but the massive transfer of wealth that the crooks on Wall Street have been perpetuating on the American public since Reagan fired all those air traffic controllers finally caught me in their snare. I couldn’t sell my house after I had already contracted to buy another house here in Delaware. I finally did manage to sell my house but at a price much lower (28%) than I had asked. Because I didn’t sell my house for near what I had planned, I was forced to take on a mortgage on my present house. That wasn’t in my retirement plans.



Again, I am fortunate that I am able to pay for this mortgage unlike many others who were literally left out in the cold. I could pay the mortgage but didn’t leave much wiggle room in my retirement income for anything else. In fact, some months I come up short like the time I had to have car repairs.



Understandably I was quite concerned when our former president began a push to privatize Social Security, thus completing the Right Wing’s agenda of totally wiping out the middle class for their rich benefactors. The Bush Regime almost got my veteran’s benefits cut off. Little wonder that I changed my registration from being a lifetime Republican to a newly radicalized Democrat.



I have to stop myself because I feel myself going into a political rant. But I do want to say that I hope to God (and I’m not religious) that the Democrats get a pair and stand up to the Party of No who are trying to destroy Obama and the country by not supporting ANYTHING Obama proposes, including job creation.



This country needs jobs. The useless Republicans (most of whom are unpatriotic in my view because of their obstructionist policies) and the spineless Democrats need to stop their games and work together to create jobs for the great middle class of this country. I know my pleas are like pissing in the wind but there, I’ve said it.



Mark Twain was right when he said:

 “Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

I’m glad I’m going back to work.

Barry Goldwater is Rolling Over in his Grave

Want to know why I'm not a registered Republican anymore? The picture on this blog will tell you why. It is of a straight, white man from the South. It is of Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina. Last night during President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress, Representative Wilson broke all decorum by shouting "You lie!" in response to President Obama's speech that his health care proposal would not cover illegal immigrants. While no one disagrees with Representative Wilson's right to disagree with President Obama, few will agree that his manner of expressing his opinion was way out of line. Few that is except Fox News but that is another whole world that I won't go into now.




For most of my adult life I was a registered conservative Republican. The first president I voted for was Barry Goldwater. He espoused my views on government and our society. I started to lose it with the Republican Party during the 1992 Republican Party Convention during the Pat Buchanan culture wars keynote speech in which he railed against gays and lesbians. Watching the all white, clean cut, conventioneers rise to their feet and give enthusiastic cheers a chill went down my spine. I realized at that time this was not the political party in which I as a gay man was welcomed. The cheering conventioneers reminded me of the "good Germans" who cheered Hitler.



In the year 2001 I officially changed my registration to Democrat. Not so much because I subscribe to all the Democratic ideals but because I could no longer remain in the Republican Party after George W. Bush and his cronies took over this country. First they get us into a war of choice in which we have wasted billions of dollars and needlessly sacrificed the lives of our best and brightest. Then the Bush administration pushed through tax cuts for the rich only (I didn't see any tax cuts) and relaxed federal regulations that ran our country into a ditch. Where I really lost it with the Bush Republicans is when they tried to take away my VA medical care from me just because I wasn't a disabled veteran. That did it for me because then I would have no health care because I was out of a job. I only had the VA healthcare because that was what was promised to me if and when I ever needed it when I joined the Army in 1960 and put my life in their hands. No they're going to go back on that promise? No, that's when I decided to get out of this party which was no longer recognizable as the Republican Party to which I once belonged.



Last night's incredibly rude outburst by Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina now shows what the Republican Party has become. It is a party of straight, white, southern men who lie, intimidate, bully and threaten. It is not my party any more. Surely, Barry Goldwater must be rolling over in his grave.