I got a phone call the other day telling me I can save a lot of money on my credit card and if I wanted to I can talk to a live agent. "Just press one," they told me. I pressed one and this guy came on. I asked him if he was a live agent. All I heard was, "Click." End of phone call. I get that a lot. Do you think they had prior warning about me? There’s no way in today’s world that we’re going to get a chance to deal with live people anymore. We’re not allowed to talk to them. We have to talk to their computer that by the way, barely understands English. "Please repeat, I didn’t understand what you said." That’s all their computers can say to us. I end up screaming on the phone to a computer! Is that abuse? I don’t think so. It’s not like I’m yelling at humans. Can’t you just picture me doing that! My doctor says that’s not good. * * * Am I the only one getting tired of this presidential race? We still have to go through this summer of political conventions which absolutely drives me nuts. My first one was in 1956, so you’ll have to count the years. I’m too old to count that high. Ike was considered a do nothing president, but where did our modern highways come from? It was Ike’s doing; he won the Republican nomination and the presidency and built the modern highways that we enjoy today. It was built because we were in a wartime mentality. We’re still in that mode today, so let’s build more roads. Today we don’t have an FDR running; we don’t have a JFK or an RFK running. We just have our modern day imitation of good old politicians who won’t give us anything anyway. By the way, my favorite convention speech is the one Robert F. Kennedy gave during the 1964 Democratic convention. I have a recording of that. Anyway, these people running today are not working for this country. That’s why we have such a huge trade deficit with China; and the oil producing countries of this world are having their way with us. The politicians are right; we need a change. But then again, they’re wrong because we’re not going to get it. Barack Obama comes as close to any of those past candidates I mentioned as anyone I know of ,but I’m not ready to endorse him yet. But hang on to your hat! As for me not voting for a woman or a black, put Oprah Winfrey on the ticket. Republican, Democrat or Independent. She has my vote! * * * This photo is from the collection of Federal-Mogul pictures that I am lucky enough to be a part of. The actual photo is bigger than I have the means to enlarge. It was taken during St. Johns’ 1956 Centennial. It is the junior high school band marching downtown on Clinton Ave. It had hung in the lobby at Federal-Mogul since the 2006 St. Johns Sesquicentennial. It was reproduced from a photo I’ve printed. This writer has the 4 x 5 negative, and it’s my hope to have it printed/framed and presented to the City of St. Johns. Of course I’ll have to lean heavily on a photography business in downtown St. Johns for help in doing this. Hopefully everything works out, and the people of St. Johns will be able to enjoy this picture once again. Federal-Mogul may be gone, but the people are still here and we still carry on. * * * I’m fully aware that Fidel Castro gave up the Cuban presidency and handed it over to his younger brother, Raul. I’ve always been in favor of us stopping our boycott of Cuba. All we’re doing is punishing the little guy. We all know that one man does not run an entire nation. He has to have the support of a lot of people. When over 11 million people can be controlled by just a few thugs, there’s something wrong there, but they’ll have to figure it out for themselves. You don’t get freedom automatically — you take it for yourself and your family. What’s going on in Cuba is meant to be that way until the many learn to control the few. Until that happens, it’s not our business. We are not the police force of the world. Our politicians need to understand that. Meanwhile, let the Cubans live. They’ll decide when the time is right to reach out their hands and grab freedom. Until the next time . . .
