Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

  Bipartisanship is defined as agreement or cooperation between two political parties that usually oppose each others policies. What it means to the Democrats and the media is that the Republicans cave and agree to everything that the Democrats want. Republicans are then thrown a meaningless bone and that passes for bi-partisan compromise. Democrats in the mainstream media and social media are crying crocodile tears for John McCain right now. Hugely offended that Donald Trump would treat a war hero like McCain with such disrespect. As if they really care for war heroes or the military for that matter. The only reason that they liked him was that he was a useful idiot for them. A master of the pseudo bipartisanship between the Republicans and Democrats. He once said “I believe my party has gone astray. I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and their philosophy.” Any Republican who could say this about the Democrat Party and m...

  We were close to our cousins growing up as you can tell in these pictures. The first picture is of my Uncle Doug who was my mothers oldest brother and his two children Judy and Jenny. Jenny is the smallest child on the right. She is in all of these pictures. I had a crush on her when we were teenagers and it bothered me that I felt that way because we were cousins. Although I am from the South and we are famous for dating our cousins I wasn't about to go there. Years later I found out we weren't biologically related. She and her sister Judy were both adopted. Maybe that is why I had the hots for her. Anyway we were close. I was painfully shy and she was always trying to get me to dance with her. She was the only one that could get me to dance and we would do the twist together. They lived right across the street from Hattie Cotton elementary school and were in walking distance from our grandparents house on McKennie Ave.  Jenny grew into a very attractive teenager but w...

  In September 2007 the bottom dropped out of the economy. A financial bubble had been created in the housing market and the bubble burst. Within four months I lost half of my 401K and the financial crisis was worldwide. To make matters worse, the decision was made to shut down the PSR or Passenger Steel Radial side of our tire plant. There were around 2000 employees at the Bridgestone-Firestone plant in Lavergne. By 2009 there were only about 500 of us left. They transferred me to the TBR, or Truck-Bus Radial side of the plant. I had been building passenger tires and now I would have to learn how to build tractor trailer and bus tires. Those tires of course are much larger and heavier than most passenger tires. I had been building tires on machines that were designed and built in the 1980's with robot arms that placed the tires on metal racks. Now I was building tires on machines that were designed and built in the 1960's.  After removing the tire from the 0 Ring I had t...