"So What, Now What?!"

You can be certain that he, and the many presidents that he served, are likely rolling in their graves, when they look at this nation's current state of affairs.

I live in Pueblo, once called "Little Chicago" for its Mafia history, and "Little Pittsburgh" for its steel production.

Now those epitaphs have long ago dwindled away to irrelevance, but we still have a steel mill, and it is, decriably, owned by Russians!

I worked there two summers. Once I 'worked the lids' at the coke plant, and that was truly a job straight out of hell. Flames spewed out at me, as, with a twelve feet long, steel broom, with a hook on one side, I swept the remnants of coal into the holes, such that no tiny bit would be lost in the process.

The other summer job was pretty much a 'gravy job' - driving fork lift in the nail mill. I worked the 'graveyard shift,' when it was coolest, and slept the day away before rehearsals of Romeo and Juliet, in which I was cast as Romeo.

Night shifts have always fit me to a 'T." They still do, because I write my best and sing my best in the 'wee small hours.'

But, speaking of "hours," the pay was pretty damn good. Now a lot of Americans wish they had those days back.

And so do I!

In the years afterward, I hung my yellow hard hat over my study desk, throughout colleges and universities, to remind me what awaited if I couldn't 'cut it' as a student!

Talk about jobs - which Pueblo now wishes it had back! - I even worked in th e Alpha Beta meat packing plant. I swear I must have compressed about four vertebrae hauling those sides of beef out of the truck into coolers!

Now with my ninety year old mother, we practically examine every cut of meat with a microscope at the supermarkets, lest we get something stringy, tough.=, and difficult to swallow/

But, what's really hard to swallow right now is the number of people, as in the Great Depression, who now are calling upon food banks and finding their way to soup kitchens!

Just how did we ever arrive at such a state of affairs?!

The answers are complex, but boil down to one word: "spending!"

Just what the hell, you lame duck jerk, Mr. Bush, were you thinking!

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