This day was coming.
I am not well. I've had back trouble since 1986. This is the worst I have had since my back issues started. I can't stand, walk, sit. I literally have to be prone on the couch or the bed to be comfortable.
I am taking various pills and potions in an attempt to ease my pain just a little. I am taking many in an attempt just get a little sleep.
I'm in a state of depression waiting for a surgery that, let's face it, might or might not work. The doctor seems to think so, but when he looks at the MRI scan and exclaims, " Oh Wow!." when we we on Teledoc with him......And of course as a surgeon he is going to want to do surgery, it's his job, and how he makes money.
My wanting to step away from blogging could be the combo of the pain, and the medications.
Let's talk a little about the election-The National One-
- Let's face it, I saw the results coming a mile away
1. Economics: I do not care what anyone says, the average person is hurting financially, and here in SE Texas, we are a little better off than the rest of America. Housing is cheaper, it just is, no one wants to live here. They never have. Even if you get a job at Exxon, or Valero, a lost of people still hate it out there. And a lot of people do anything to get the hell out of this region. And don't say, " Well, I like it here." Yeah, I understand the sentiment. But the average person in America, heck Texas is saying, " I want to move to Beaumont. To the heat and humidity, to the uneducated( The counties in this area have fewer college grads than most of this state, Newton, Jasper, Orange, are at the bottom of Texas.( And we have a university nearby0 I'm sorry they just are. I was getting blood drawn the other day and people were in there talking about Asians, and how backward they are....I've been to one of the 4th rate cities in China. Spent a month there. The roads were better than anything in Texas, I counted 40 skyscraper cranes building new skyscrapers, They had Rolls-Royce Dealers, 3 Land Rover Dealers, the Chinese were at the time keeping General Motors in business. The town was more modern than anything in America, or England and was running better than anything we had or the Europeans. The floors at the airport in the 4th rate city as they called it, was so clean, you could eat off the floor. Now not all of China is like this, there are parts that are rough, very rough, but in the middle of a city of 10 million, that literally see no Westerners, I was shocked.) The heat, the humidity, and while we are used to the average person who lives here, and they are " our people" it is somewhat a culture shock for people not from SE Texas. It really is.
Unless you were born here, and your family is here, many of you are looking to get out of this area. Move to Dallas, Austin, heck, other Southern cities and regions.
I digress, and probably will several times in this blog.
The average person in America is living paycheck to paycheck. Groceries are sky high, rent is way up and god-forbid you try and buy a house, both the price of a home and interest-rates shoot the houses up so much people are not able to afford a home, then there are those investment firms buying up all the homes. the average family being able to buy a home of any type is way out of their ability to buy one.
All of the inflation, the interest rates went up while the Democrats were in office. They're in charge, they get the blame, it's just the way it is.
And the economy isn't any better. Look at the price of pick-up trucks, and heck GM, Dodge, Chevy really don't have starter vehicles like they did in the past. And if they do, they're pretty crappy. And many of those have so much added stuff, they are just expensive. Sorry if you sell these vehicles, you just don't have starters. It's why people are buying Toyota's, Honda's, Subaru's, Hyundai's...and even there, people can't afford many of those anymore.
2. Gen Z Males: Yep, we are hitting a nerve here.
I do not know what men have done in this world. I really do not. Females had rather be lost in the woods with a bear than a man?
I often see hatred of men on Facebook by women on here. I don't know what these guys have done to you, but most guys are not terrible trashy thugs. I keep seeing that they "don't want guys to have access to their bodies." I thought that was why you get married, so you can have sex. And to be honest, most women want the man to initiate sex, and if you don't want to have sex, why'd you get married? ( There's still some of us ( males) who waited until marriage. )
I've never raped anyone. I've never sexually molested anyone. I asked before, and she does too. Maybe that's just us, but it works for us.
I've made sure I was not alone with any female in my life, even years ago, and if we went to the cuss porch, well, there were huge plate glass windows so anyone could see what was going on, and most of the time, time on the cuss porch was for me to talk to you about your grade( generally the ole Govteach was going to tell you that things are going to be okay. Not always, but 99% of the time it's you're going to pass the course...and sometimes, we just needed to talk, often about problems you were having, now males, I often charged you up and used choice language, but females, no.) I moved my podium to the corner of the room to avoid being flashed by girls in miniskirts. And not all girls worn knickers. I've been embarrassed more than once with a vagina looking sideways back at me.
You may say Mr. Thomas, the Govteach is now either "Red Pill" or " Black Pill" now, and I know you may not believe it, but I think that is probably someone for everyone.
Young men in many cases have just "given up." They have no serious job prospects. Many of them don't "know anyone" to help them get on at the plants. If I'd known someone back in the day, I would have loved to have gotten on at Texaco ( Motiva) or Gulf ( Chevron-Valero) etc. But I knew no one who could get me on, and I know it's changed since then, but not really. If anything it's worse today. College students are 60% females today and college grads are predominately female
Young men unless they are really handsome or really well off financially have a hard time finding a girlfriend, much less a wife, and we understand that girls need to be picky about who they date, but so many girls date guys who are sorry, sorry, crumb bums, and then gripe about they not being about to find a "good guy" and while there are good guys out there, so many in the single men have just given up. 80% of single men are no longer interested in dating.
Young me are not really going to the GOP. They're going away from the Democrats.
On the Democrats website, they talk about who they serve...Asians, Disabled,16 different groups which make up about 75% of the populous. In none of it did they talk about young men....Or men in general.
Men are why we have an opioid crisis. 3/4 of the addicts are men
Men make up the vast majority of the homeless. 3/4 are men.
Men are 80% of the suicides, and I've talked more people than I care to count, and got actual help, " off the ledge" and all were men. I know, I had someone get me off the ledge. The back situation for almost 40 years, well, sometimes you think, " enough it enough."
Men without the romantic prospects are doing video games, vaping, porn....and why get a job or try and improve if there is no hope of getting someone who loves them romantically.
More single women own houses than men, and that's not a bad thing, it is not, but men see no hope in the future. Why try? Average men now have no hope, oh there are "down to earth" girls who know they are not going to marry rich guys who are guys with Brad Pitt looks. But so many girls are looking for the unicorn, and well, you're not going to find him.
Sorry.
And I understand you want the perfect guy, but most of you won't find him, we all have flaws, Lord knows Deborah Darlene Britain Lindenmayer Thomas married a guy with them. And she loves him and her husband loves her. That love has kept me from the " enough is enough." Seriously.
This year 75% of the admits to Harvard University were minorities.
I have a nephew who has applied there, Yale, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Dartmouth, other big name schools. He will be valedictorian this May. He has knocked the top out of both the ACT and SAT tests. He has done all sorts of extra curricular, work in his community, Played sports he was no good at just to check a box. His done everything he could thing of extra. Worked with the poor in an urban setting. He is not going to get into any of these schools. He'll probably go to the University of Texas. And would get into Texas just because he will be in the top percentage of his HS class. .
Young men are struggling, they are left behind, and young women are doing well. Ladies doing well is a good thing, young men, not so good. We need both doing well, or this thing is going to fall apart, and the Democratic Party is not seeing this.
- A Woman Candidate
I always thought the first first female U.S. President would be a Republican.
And I am going to get into bad trouble here. Going to get called sexist, a misogynist.
I got fired from my real first teaching job. Oh, I was told to resign, or be fired. The principal was a woman.
I am not sure what I did. I was, at the time, the only non-coach, non-vocational teacher male on campus. She for whatever reason hated me. Wrote me up for not wearing a tie. ( And there was no tie requirement.) She found 83 things wrong when I was observed/evaluated by her. I didn't know there were that many things you could find wrong. Now during that time she was going through a divorce and there was a bad custody problem going on during the divorce and all I could think of was I was an easy scapegoat to blame.
Got the hell out of there and went to seminary. Good bad or otherwise, it got my mind and soul right, and I wound up at Dayton High, and taught the exact same way I did previously.
They loved me at Dayton. I could still be there. I couldn't keep driving 60 miles one way, and we could not find a house that was a decent drive for both of us( Deb was working at Baptist Hosp.) to make, so I put in about 50 applications. Buna wasn't one. (You've heard the Buna story.)
But, things are foreordained. I wind up at Buna High School. I spend the majority of my career there.
And it wasn't all peaches and cream with administration there. There was an administrator who made it her mission and told people, to " get rid of me."
That was, until I had her children in class. I treated her kids like everyone else, and one of them, pick and teased with, well, guys do things that seem very mean to one another, and in truth, the harder we tease one another, the more it shows we like each other. She turned on a dime when her kids liked me, and went home and told government/history stories I had told in class.
There were other females at Buna who hated me including a counselor who just despised me. And other teachers, female, and yes, I am different, I won't play politics with you, suck up to you, won't tell you how nice you look, and yes, I got into trouble for protecting seniors, ( Yeah you are welcome, ungrateful little snots....Many of you don't know how many of you I got out of trouble, and convinced someone to pass you so you would walk, behind the scenes I'm teasing you about being ungrateful. You don't know.)
But I digress.
I know I am different. Always have been. I have a different view of stuff. I don't hold back on what I think. I think school should be about the kiddos. Others, well, they do not "get it."
So, some of us are still afraid of female leadership. Not just men, but women. Never mind if I lived in Buna I would have voted for several females for school board.
-The Buna Schools
I worry about the Buna Schools, I really do. You're in a downward spiral, you really are. I know people will get all upset saying I am a negative nabob, but i try and call it as i see it and generally most people agree with me.
There are very few teachers at this point I would want to have my child in their class. Oh, the elementary has some good ones still, but get to secondary, well, you need to start hiring serious folks. And quit hiring " hometown folks" who want to keep their jobs. I literally went to school every day saying " This could be my last one here."
But I had a serious job. And I looked at it that way. You don't want me to do what I am doing, let me go. I'd had so much bad stuff in the past, well, I'll find another teaching job. I had get seniors ready for college, for the real world. I could not be " Mr. Thomas" in today's school world and sorry, I might be rougher today than I was back in the 1990s. The world is not all sweetness and roses. And today's kids are being so overprotected.
School Board, be careful who you pick as Supt. of Schools. Grill the hell out of them in the interview process. They DO NOT have to have a Ph.D or an Ed.D. Don't just get one with one because it "looks good" and Evadale has, or Kirbyville's has a doctorate.
Make sure they care about Buna, and that might be hard to do. Ask about new programs they plan to implement, and ask why? And if they know if they'll work? Or is this some sort of experiment? Ask if they plan to stay and if they leave, give them absolute hell for doing so. I have more, but it's the board's job to grill the hell out of candidates.
After this blog, you may want to unfriend me, and that's okay. It will be my last one, perhaps for a while, perhaps I am done. I am tired, I am in pain that I did not think was possible. I thought my ankle was going to explode earlier from the sciatic pain running down my back, leg to ankle. I am also on meds trying to get me through the day. I've written this over several days as I can't sit very long.
If you need me, many of you have my cell number. you want my number, ask me for it. Why not? I'll be on Facebook from time to time, but blogging, heck, make me a decent offer and I'll sell it to you. It's time for me to take time off. A sabbatical. The ole govteach is just not well right now.
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