Rest Area

A memory of my young life, one I have shared on many platforms, plowing in the field with a two horse plow, stopping to let the mules have a rest break, laying back on the newly plowed fresh soil, looking up into the sky full of clouds, and realizing you “are not stuck where you start.” Thank God, I knew there was space beyond the world in which I was reared. Laying in bed at night, I could hear the great East Coast Champion and other trains whistle as they covered the tracks from New York to Miami. One must have the desire to go further, with rest stops in between.

In traveling North, I have stopped at the rest stops on the New Jersey Turnpike and even on Highway 95. In recent years, these rest stops, once a haven for perverts, have become a “stock exchange” for drug addicts. On the great Motorway of the Sun from Paris to Nice, France, it was so pleasant to refresh with a cappuccino.

I come from a time when there were few vacations and few coffee breaks. My father, known for his singing, would sing “I'll Take my Vacation in Heaven.” Today's employees spend more time taking rest breaks, talking about rest breaks, than they do in actual work.

Have you ever considered holidays enjoyed by government workers? In a country of just over three hundred million, twenty million of that population are employed by government: local, state and federal. This is an astounding army, an army that does not need lobbyists, because every politician courts these workers. They can determine an election. As former N.C. Governor Terry Sanford told me in 1960, “Take care of government employees. They determine elections.” Recently, beyond belief, voters in this county voted to raise their sales tax because politicians told county workers to spread the “word” through their communities that real estate tax would go down IF there were an increase in sales tax because all, including the illegals, would pay sales tax. The very next day, after the electorate voted for this tax increase, these same commissioners voted to raise real estate tax.

These same politicians run on a platform of servitude. They all want to serve you. Like the bureaucrats they appoint, they all become civil masters. I have never known an elected politician who did not come back from his time of “supposed” servitude much richer than when he left. The infamous Bill Clinton said, “Until I went to the White House, I did not have a nickel. Now I am a millionaire.” Lyndon Johnson went to Washington almost penniless. He went back to Texas, after the presidency, with 53 million. Jim Hunt, sixteen years governor of North Carolina, now heading the Hunt Machine, as well as making a million dollars a year with the state's largest law firm, escaped a poor tobacco farm in Wilson county to become one of the state's richest politicians. Although, I understand, none of the money trickled down to his parents. Some of his father's friends bought him a color television - his father was still watching a black and white.

While most of us are working, trying to pay the ever increasing tax burden, the burden of taxes to pay the ever increasing government workers. These “pets” of the state take off every Holiday, every bad weather day, long vacations on in-between days. One of my civil service cousins said to me, “We spend Monday talking about what we did on the weekend. We usually take Tuesday for necessary private appointments with our doctors, dentists and veterinarians. We spend Thursday and Friday planning our weekend and talking with our co-workers about our planned weekend activities. Some of us have Wednesday afternoons off for golf or recreation. Or we might just get some government work done on Wednesday.” These government workers, graduate from college around age 23, if going to work with the government immediately, will have thirty years good service then, can retire with ¾ ,maximum pay at age 53, along with accumulated pay for sickness and vacation. Then will have many years for a second career or just comfortable play time.

One of my family graduated from college at 22. She immediately went to work teaching school. During the vacation summers, she obtained two masters degrees which pushed her pay scale. She retired as a school principal at age 54. She took on a part time job as a principal in a private school and earns 105,000 a year in retirement pay.

Recently obscene retirement schedules surfaced. In another commentary, I told about the retired police chief from West Point New York who lived next door to me. He laughed at my military service, my blindness, and told me he received 250,000 a year in retirement. This seemed unexplainable, but Bell, California could beat that. Robert Rizzo, Chief Administrative Officer, will received $600,000 a year in retirement. Not far behind would be Randy Adams, the man Rizzo brought in to be the city’s police chief last July. If Adams, 59, steps down, his pension would be worth an estimated $411,300.

This year, we will have officially the largest federal workforce in the country's history. It will reach 2.15 million – and that doesn't count nearly 650,000 postal workers, who, technically, work for a separate "corporation." This year we have added yet another 153,000 new federal employees. Of one thing you can be sure, the thousands of veterans who have returned from the war will not receive any better pensions or any better care. The greatest shame of this nation is its treatment of disabled veterans and handicapped citizens. This totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected veteran, waited thirty years after applying for housing adaptation, a security system. There is nothing more frightening for a blind person than a break in or a fire. For nearly thirty years, each night, I put cement blocks against my exterior doors to give me some additional time on the phone seeking police assistance. Finally, VA installed a security system which has never worked.

My advice to the workers of the world: rest, pray, and act. Spend rest time with your family. Ultimately, they are all you have. And for many of us, a disappointment. Pray, for the leadership of the holy spirit in every activity. Act, as if tomorrow depends on what you do today. In these uncertain times, there is nothing more important than preparations for a disaster. Buy some extra food each week , food easily and safely stored, freeze dried food will last many years. And so will most canned goods. An expiration date is put on most food as it is put on most prescription medicine, and we all know that this is just a sales gimmick. You could have stacks of money, bars of gold and silver, but you cannot eat either. It may not happen tomorrow, next month, or next year, but you can depend on a nuclear strike. You will not be able to go anywhere, will have plenty of time to rest. God help those with children, those with terminal illness in the home. Prepare your psyche now for these unexpected rest times. And if you have not already made those eternal preparations, your time of eternal rest.