Here I am, sitting in my bedroom (sleeper) parked at the Pilot Travel Center in Laramie, Wyoming. I tend to forget that I have lived a most unusual life. In the view of the corporate world, I am a failure. Climb the ladder? I never even looked for it! Although I am that rolling stone I am happy and satisfied with what I have done. There are times in my life I wish I had not had or done, but yet even the bad times helped to create the good times.
Growing up on our family farm gave me the ability to work. My imagination helped me realize I could do "other" things. Even though changes were scary, I could never have simply stayed the same in the same place. I wanted each day to bring new challenges and opportunities. As soon as I figured out that I could be something other than a farmer I changed. I spent several years as a police officer, several more driving dump and log trucks in the coastal islands of southeast Alaska; more again as a director in a nursing home, one as a school janitor, another running a carpet cleaning business. Spent a year driving long haul in the late 80's, and the longest (12 years) as an industrial weigh scale technician. Spent another 10 years as a volunteer fireman and several of those years as an EMT. Now, do not get me wrong! This is not my greatest accomplishments.
That would be our children. Of course, anyone who has raised kids knows the most wonderful and the most dreadful times of life. We know the heartache of loosing a child at birth, and the thrill of knowing our kids have become wonderful adults. A great help in this was our religious beliefs that focused on the family, not the world.
Our world today wonders why we have such trouble with our children, why our economy is in shambles, why our crime rates are so huge. It really is quite simple. We have pulled away from "the family", have stripped "God" from our buildings, our homes. It is not so much a belief in a religion, or a God; it is the beliefs that these religions espouse; that of family, sacrifice, giving rather than receiving, loving your neighbor as you love yourself. We have become a selfish people in our utopia of life. If one were to study and understand the history of humans we would know what always happens when we get fat and sassy. Always....happens!
Think on this....in a few years the children of our nation will be our leaders. Are you satisfied that they will be ready for this? Have we trained them to understand, to be compassionate leaders? Have the TV, the video games, the cell phones helped them to learn to socialize and interact together in such a way as to lead a nation? Have our kids learned to act on their own, or do they simply react to their surroundings? Have they been taught to be responsible for their actions, or have we, over and over, taught them to look for excuses, to blame "someone else"? Think about it.......
So let's end this on a lighter note. Here I am, back driving long haul all over the United States. Although I would rather be at home more, especially now that I have a girl friend (easy, it will stay that way for quite some time!) I love driving these large trucks, and once again constantly changing all the time. My life! I think I'll keep it.....
