Well, it’s here. I think it’s here. Well, maybe it’s here … SPRING! Folks, I’ve seen the sun and it even felt warm. I knew that new GPS I bought to help find SPRING was money well-spent! Many thanks on last week’s scribblin’, these are desperate times when it comes to me writing I’ll tell ya. I mean, potholes and frost heaves and toothpicks and politics, they all can rile ya a bit one way or another for sure!
Been doin’ a little truck driver survey as I’ve traveled around the countryside lately on the employment, or job, situation. Our Govnah, aka “the Big Guy,” and our Prez, “The Supreme Tweeter,” all they want to talk about is jobs, jobs, jobs, how they want to create more jobs.
Well, I’ve been in some big factories, mills, and lots of smaller companies, and the one thing we all have in common is that we can’t find help, or maybe let’s put it this way, someone who is qualified, shows up every day, and understands that for a day’s pay, there needs to be a day’s work involved!
And I’m not talking about menial jobs either. Plumbers, construction workers, equipment operators, truck drivers, nurses, and yes, even doctors – just doesn’t seem to be enough to go around. And it’s not only in the Northeast either. I talk to freight brokers all over the country every week, and they all are singin’ the same song!
Makes me scratch my head and wonder, maybe we haven’t been doing this education thing right lately. Have we forgotten how to educate people, that to be able to have a lifestyle, one might need a trade or skill to survive? Or do we now have a society that is bent on taking the easy way out, depending on government to take care of them and theirs?
Somewhere in the last 50 years something seems to have gone really upside down in the labor force. I can’t believe I’m just getting cynical, must be old age I guess!
And speaking of the “Big Guy,” did ya see where he’s talkin’ about a run for the U.S. Senate? Of course, Mrs. Lepage has to give her blessing. And maybe with this wage/tip law playin’ out, she might be an easy sell after all. I don’t know, she seemed pretty happy down at McSeagull’s last summer, makin’ her own money. And I’m pretty sure she probably did better there than at some five star in D.C., where nobody knows your name, or at least a lot happier!
Not sure how that’s all gonna play out for the Govnah. Angus King has always been pretty popular in Maine, and even though he claims to be independent, he sure seems to lean a lot to the left! But at least he is respectful to the office and doesn’t go off half-cocked, with statements and name-calling that are uncalled for and mostly unsubstantiated. That says a lot about the person in itself!
Now as one can probably guess, me and the Govnah probably wouldn’t go fishing together or sit and have an adult beverage either, but really we only got a little over two more years to go with Mr. LePage, and I’m not really interested in seein’ him in Washington either, rubbin’ elbows and learnin’ how to tweet, so I think I’m headed for Boothbay real soon and have a chat with Mrs. LePage, and try and convince her how ugly Washington, D.C. is, and if you need to borrow a cup of sugar from the neighbor, you might need to speak five different languages to be successful! Keep smilin’!
Larry Sidelinger
Yankee Pride Transport
Damariscotta
