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My Back Pages: Of Unions, Companies, Strikes, and Broken Promises... : August 19, 2011 I am a bit under the weather today, but better than I have been in the past week or so. It all started out with a s...

   Of Unions, Companies, Strikes, and Broken Promises August 19, 2011 I am a bit under the weather today, but better than I have been in the past week or so. It all started out with a simple ear infection... something that I have not had in over thirty three years. As a matter of fact, the last time I had an ear infection is when I re-joined the Bell System after a 3 year hiatus, having been laid off from Western Electric in 1975. Soon after re-joining the Communications Workers of America, my service was bridged, and I had health insurance right away.. a good thing, since I soon came down with an ear infection and was out of work for a week. I was never one for taking time off for illness, but this was one of the exceptions.   Flash forward thirty three years, and there I was with an ear infection being paid for by the same health insurance plan. I am retired now, and over the years, CWA took less in wage compensation so that we would be assured coverage for ...

                                      I'm Tired!                      August 10, 2011 Facebook I'm tired, folks.. not just tired from lack of sleep, although this is also true. No, I'm tired because of the constant, daily haranguing from the media about everything and anything. Someone needs to tell me, when we became a country that lives in a perpetual state of crisis? From one day to the next, from one hour to the next, there is something that we rend our garments like the prophets in the old testament, because conditions are so dire, so overwhelming, that we cannot possibly overcome them. From the panicky sissies on Wall Street who SELL, SELL, SELL and the drop of a decimal point, through the cr...

  Summer, The Heat, and Old Friends   July 23, 2011- Well, yesterday is in the record books as the hottest day on record for that day in July since they started keeping such things. It was sweltering, no doubt about it. Sheryl went over to my daughter Danielle's house to pick up Johnny boy. They have no AC because the windows are louvered, so she brought him back here to nap. Grandpa asked him if he wanted an ice pop, and John replied with a big grin and a "Yes! Ice Pop!" The boy never ceases to amaze me... he is just one year old.  Well, he finished his pop, and Grandma took him in to nap. Two minutes later, she was back. "We have no power!" Just John's luck. I called the electric company and went through the usual reporting routine and was told that they would get someone out as soon as possible. "Sure" I thought. "We will have to eat out, and will be lucky if the power comes back on in 6 hours or so. A very short time later, the power...

Mom and Dad  June 18, 2011         Father's Day, 2011 With Father's Day fast approaching, I am painfully reminded that my own father has been gone now thirty years. Thirty years without hearing his voice, or having him see his grandchildren.... how very, very sad. We used to go to my parent's house every Sunday. We'd pack the four kids, then that last year five kids, into my old Pinto wagon and drive the short twenty minute trip to their house for Sunday dinner. It was something families did in those days, no thought to doing anything differently. Mother's Day and Father's Day were always special days, and we tried to make it as happy for them as we could. I miss that, sometimes painfully so. I wish I had them both back so that I could tell them how much I love them, and thank them for raising me to be a decent man. I am what I am because I tried to emulate my father, who was always forthright, decent, and respectful to all. He worked ...

          The Death of Bin Laden and the Politics of Hate   May 2, 2011  I was spending my usual Sunday night, watching HBO and surfing the net, when it came over my news feed that Osama Bin Laden, the face of the 9/11 atrocity had finally been taken out. As the details came in, I thought to myself, 'How fitting that the name of the man in the Oval Office when this mass murderer was brought down is Barack Hussein Obama. Now, it's not be that it is just a white man of European descent brought this animal down. It's a man of multiracial, multi ethnic background giving the OK finally bring this killer to justice. It is a man who's makeup represents the multiracial victims of this atrocity.  Let me make it clear that I did not voter for the President. I did not vote for him because I felt that he did not yet have the experience necessary to be President. However, once he was elected, I felt that it was my duty to get behind him and let him lead....

               Welcome Home Vietnam Veteran's Day  March 30, 2011   The Senate has approved March 30 as 'Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day'. This measure still has to be approved by the house, which probably means it will never get done because those posing imbeciles cannot agree on anything. I guess the senate feels guilty about neglecting us when we really returned, all those years ago. They tried once before to honor us with a Welcome Home Day and Parade back in 1986. That, while it was still a bit late, went over well.  Now, all of us are older, many of us in poor health either because of the chemicals we were exposed to over there (Agent Orange was just one of many), or because we came back, put our heads down and got to work raising families and re-building America's pride in itself. We never complained, never asked for anything except what was coming to us. Yet, recently, we have been called 'The Gre...