Matt

I stopped in at my favorite restaurant and had dinner with Mrs.C on Friday after work. The family that owns it are friends of ours and we share our successes and our failures. One of the waiters is a local school teacher by day, and comes in to help her brother in law at night on weekends. She and her husband have two kids the same ages as mine. I got there a lil early, and before the crowd. She saw me and came over to chat. I asked her how her oldest was doing. A lil background here. He graduated from high school, and went on to college to get his degree. He spent his school days in JROTC followed by ROTC in college, also an enlistment in the Army Reserves. He intends to make the Army his career. He has requested a transfer to a unit that will put him through Airbourn school and then on to Afghanistan or Iraq. He has done this while delaying going to officers candidate school. His reason for doing this is to get his combat patch (CIB?) before becoming an officer. Without going into details, I will tell you that she is proud of her son. Scared yes, but proud. I believe the tree of liberty is well defended for the time being thanks to families like hers.

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Geez what a slug. I have never been at a loss for words, and am not now. I just think my give a shit is busted. I've had a crew working on the problem for a while now, but to no avail. Work has been a handful, and the days long. I did however return MG's inTview, so I'm not a total sluggard. Know that during these times I'm reading everyone else's stuff. As a rule, I think there are too many of us out here cluttering up the space, but I won't quit. I'm selfish that way. There are a couple of folks I'd like to see with blogs, if for no other reason then I like to see them think. I would warn you though, a blog is a hell of a master, never satisfied. In that light I envy John, and Don, their ability to post and move on. I like my friend Diane, have a hard time getting to everyone I want to visit, and the newspaper be damned. Blogging has taught me a few things I might list. 1. The world is full of yappy people. 2. The world is full of stupid people. 3. The world is full of bright people. 4. I wish to be one of the few wise people. The lessons I learn from each and every one of you assure that my wish might one day be true. I knew an old woman, a long time ago. She taught school. She didn't just teach school, she taught idiots. I'm referring to the underachievers that suffer some form of handicap. She taught blind children that the others could not reach, or didn't deem useful to reach. I witnessed many miracles among her students that she considered part of the process. She believed that if you exercised the mind, it would grow. I saw (challenged) kids, (Johns word) win spelling bees, and type 70 cwper min. I was beaten by one of her students in a general knowledge bee. The kid, at seventeen needed help getting dressed in the morning, but smoked my butt! I call that Terry's lesson. Don't ever underestimate someone. The stats are against us, but I hope you're living a long and happy life Terry. I hope all of these lessons will teach me.........Some measure of wisdom.

Special Olympics

Mrs. C is a supporter of Special Olympics. She was telling me that she saw a mother and daughter at the grocery store, and noticed the daughter was retarded. She was also wearing two blue ribbons from the special Olympics. The young lady was very happy to have her ribbons. She should be! She earned them fair and square. Those ribbons are a symbol of achievement! It might seem a small thing to us, but to the winner of such! Well it could be a lifetime achievement. Honest Abe was wrong, all men aren't created equal. Some will never be president of a company, or command others. I do however believe that every success should be considered important, if only for what it allows the person to feel for a while. Self esteem is worth more then gold, even to the retarded. Your assignment if you choose to take it, is to realize that everyone has some value to someone though it might not be apparent.

Racism part three

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Racism part two

OK so I had a lot to say about the Mexican immigrant thing, but it will have to wait. As I’ve stated, I work in the ghetto. The things I see on a day to day basis do justice to the song “Doctor my eyes. I have done all that I could, to see the evil and the good.” Today was no exception. I got back from lunch and noticed some trash down the hill from where I work. I’m looking out the back door of the building down a hill at an empty lot that used to contain a church. I’ve always thought of it as hallowed ground. My building is a drive through garage, with a truck door at each end. As you go out the back, you have about thirty to forty feet before you come to the fence that separates the property from that below it. Beyond this point there used to be a small black church. By black I mean the people that went there, not the color of the building. The church only had about five members at service, and that only every other Sunday. The rest of the time the drive was used for hookers to do their tricks out of sight of all except us at the back door early in the morning. (No they don’t seem to mind if you watch. Or even puke.)
A few years ago the church burned down due to an electrical problem in an extension cord. Now it is just a lot, in the middle of a green space behind our building.
So after lunch I was talking to my manager when he asked me if that was a person lying out there by the trash along the fence. I can’t see well so I went to have a look. What I found was a Black male of undetermined age lying in the dirt of a recent sewer project. The day was warm, so his coat was besides him along with a large duffel bag. He seemed to be asleep. Continued

Racism part one

Lets talk about one of the tough subjects. Racism.
By definition, it means to believe in the superiority of a race over other races, and that race is the main factor in that superiority. Lets not confuse this with prejudice, which is a preconceived notion or opinion. I’ve been called a racist many times, when in reality I’m just prejudiced about certain things. I saw on fox news, a story about the minutemen watching our border. Some say they are racist, and only do this because they don’t like Mexicans. I’m not fond of Mexicans, but not because of their ethnicity. I’m not fond of them because I find them parasitic. One might ask how are they parasitic? Lets go back in the time machine to a time when Tom C was a young tough guy with no job. We had just given Carter the boot (incompetent dink!) and were hoping Reagan would get us some work. When federal money became available for new construction, and the interest rate came down, we started building houses. I remember my crew competing against a crew of Mexicans building basements, and pouring concrete. We held our own, but worked for about one third of union scale. Any more, and they worked and we didn’t. I didn’t dislike these people, even ate lunch with them some days. That’s where I got my love of jalapeno peppers. What I did dislike was the lack of money for a very hard job. There’s no harder job then humping mud and block for twelve hours a day, I promise! Especially at six bucks an hour, no time and a half over forty hours. I thought we were better, as far as quality but that might have just been my prejudice, or pride in my work. On some days the wives would show up with the kids, and I would wonder how the hell they could support all those kids. I had one, and another on the way, and a rented house in a blue-collar neighborhood. She worked, I worked, and we didn’t have much.
Fast forward to the present day.
I live in the country where they grow peaches. Lots of peaches. More peaches then anywhere else in the world. (No it’s not Georgia!) It takes a lot of labor to harvest those peaches. Guess who picks them? Yep, the Mexicans. I work in the ghetto. Lots of unemployed blacks around. HMM. How come they aren’t picking peaches? The growers have busses, and will provide transportation. Answer? It’s hot miserable work that doesn’t pay enough to live on. How do they do it? Does any body remember car stuffing? Continued….