To be a good American is to be a contributing member of society. And to be a contributing member of society means being a functioning part of America’s commercial engine. At our core, all Americans are resources of money. Pie charts that everyone wants a piece of. Restaurants, Doctors, Lawyers, Car Makers, Tax Collectors, Cable Companies, Computer Companies, Hollywood – you name it, to them we are all just these little pockets of oil that they mine. Valuable, but exhaustible…
I read recently where the average life expectancy in the United States is 78.1 years. They break it down by gender, and it’s a little less for men than it is for women. But in any case, it looks like I’ve got about 30 good years left – assuming that I’m still learning and moving forward at the end, and not decrepit. Otherwise, it’s probably 20 good years and 10 miserable ones. But I’m going to remain positive as things…
As you may or may not know, I was unexpectedly hospitalized in March. I spent about 36 hours in Carolinas Medical Center, which is part of the Carolinas Healthcare System. It’s a good hospital. Both our daughters were born there. It’s part of the neighborhood. My bill for the 36 hours of intravenous antibiotics, a CAT scan, some lab work, and a few shots of morphine was $18,000. Or about $500 per hour. I saw a doctor for all of…
There was once a time when I didn’t think much about coincidence and fate. I was the master of my own world and what happened happened because I made it happen. My will be done and all that. When I first quit drinking, I told a guy in an AA meeting that I didn’t want to go to AA meetings because I thought they would try to brainwash me. He said that maybe my brain needed washing. It did, as…
When I was a child, I remember driving through parts of Jacksonville where black people lived in wooden shacks on cinderblocks. It made me sad for them. Little did I know that they weren’t necessarily sad themselves. Yet, it didn’t feel right that people in general had to live like that. We weren’t rich. In fact, we lived in a black neighborhood for a while when my mother was single with two children. But later, after she remarried and we…
We didn’t win the lotto tonight. My wife bought three tickets and used various personal algorithms to pick the numbers. Though I don’t know why she just picked three. Three? “One for each of them,” she said referring to the children. “And one for us.” she added with a flip of her hair. I don’t play. Never did. I always gambled with my life, instead. Not that I’m against the idea of the lottery. Sure, it’s got its bad qualities…
