My Long-winded History: Better grab a drink and some popcorn!
DISCLAIMER: While in High School, I failed my junior year, second semester of English.
Hence, that is why I write like I speak. Basically, I will never satisfy an English Teacher!
...
I was born in Kansas City, Missouri in May of 1968. Interestingly enough, I was born 4 years after Jeff Bezos and 4 years before Elon Musk.
I was destined to be the average kid in the middle.
My parents brought me home to our new house in Independence, Missouri. It was a starter, 3 bedroom, 1 & ½ bath raised ranch home in a subdivision. The average house on our block sold for $16,000 but they purchased the upgraded, larger front porch model for $16,500. Our house was just 5.1 Miles from Harry S. Truman’s home. Unfortunately, Harry passed when I was only 4 years old and I never had a chance to meet him.
I was raised Catholic. My mother always stayed home with us kids and my dad worked in the aviation industry. He grew up southwest of Chicago on a small acreage. I believe around 5 acres. A sister, of one of my dad’s high school buddies, married a young man from Hale, Missouri. Around that time, my father became good friends with the groom’s family in Missouri. While still in high school, my dad would hitchhike from the Chicago area to Hale, MO, with his shotgun (Not in a gun case), to hunt and fish with his newly found friends. When I was growing up, they were all part of our family. I just did not know at the time that we were not blood related. They were my third set of grandparents. (Thank You Ercil and Florence.)
We grew up OUTSIDE and did everything fun under the sun. Sometimes even under the moonlight. When I look back, I wonder how I made it. One fond memory was when the city of Independence would send out mosquito spraying trucks after dark and us kids would try to catch it. Imagine running hard, breathing deeply and chasing a pesticide spraying truck? Maybe that is why I never get mosquito bites to this day! 😀
My parents ended up buying 40 acres just north of Hale, Missouri. It had an old farmhouse that we fixed up just enough to make it a fun weekend home. As kids, we climbed trees, dammed up the small creek, swam in our farm pond and found old documents under a pile of hay in our barn. These documents belonged to a man named “J.W.James”. With Jesse James in our state’s history, we were excited at this find. My dad taught me how to hunt and fish (Thank You dad). He always let me use his 20-gauge pump shotgun, his .308 caliber deer rifle and .22 caliber, bolt action rifle. I hunted for rabbit, squirrel, duck, goose, dove, quail, deer and bullfrogs. I also shot thousands of .22 shells at just about anything. I loved shooting empty cans (Plinking & target shooting). To this day, I appreciate growing up owning guns.
Every time we made the trip to Hale, we stopped at “Grandma and Grandpas house”. It did not matter what time of day we arrived, the smell of Folgers or generic coffee brewing filled their old farmhouse. They had 3 sons. One of them lived in the Kansas City area (I did not know them very well; however I remember his 3 younger kids). The other 2 sons lived on land near Hale. One had 3 boys and the other had 3 girls. I personally always liked playing games with the 3 girls. I was kind of fond of the youngest daughter, she is probably a year or two older than me? and is the prettiest!
Now let’s circle back to ‘One of my dad’s high school buddies’. He had also moved from Illinois, years earlier to northwest of Hale, MO. They had 5 kids. We visited them from time to time and hunted their land and fished their lake down in the timber. It was a beautiful piece of property. The oldest son owned the local tavern, so we occasionally stopped in for a soda pop. I ended up spending most of my time with the two youngest boys.
I’m not sure of the year, however, their family had experienced an unfortunate fire that tragically consumed their entire home, burning it to the ground. Thankfully they were all OK. We visited them just days afterwards. Us kids had strict instructions to ‘Stay away from the burnt house!’ Well me and said ‘Middle Son’ (I will not mention names here!) apparently heard nothing because we ran straight down into the basement of the burnt house. We found their old deep freeze and raked all the debris and ash off the lid. We opened it to see a full sized turkey, once frozen, that had been so hot in the fire that the plastic wrapper had melted off of it. It was a beautiful, golden brown just like you see on Thanksgiving. We thought about tasting it but heard someone talking outside the foundation. We both laughed as we ran back out of that basement, never to return!
It was always a fun time and we all looked forward to going out to “The Farm” for the weekend.
My dad also had a good friend living in North Kansas City, Missouri. We visited them from time to time and their 3 sons would keep us entertained. Their mother always had a card table set up with 3 big bowls of different snack chips! As the night progressed, they were seemingly "Bottomless Chips" and I love chips! It was a rare treat for me! Sometimes it is the little things in life we remember that stick with us. (Thank You Peggy and Willie)
I will date myself here because that was back in the days where we had like 5 channels on the TV. At night we watched the Dukes of Hazard, Dallas, and Knots Landing. Saturday mornings were pure cartoons and we hated to stop watching just to eat our cereal for breakfast. Mom made us eat in the kitchen, at the table. (We had only 1 TV and it was in the living room, and nobody had even thought about recording or pausing TV shows!) Oh, and our telephone was screwed to the wall and only had a 10-foot cord. There was no such thing as a “Private Conversation” back then! (Richard Nixon would have agreed with me!) If you were lucky, the cord would stretch all the way to the bathroom. Those where fun and carefree times to be a kid. Back then, our parents were not Taxed to death, and we had respectable, honorable and mostly law-abiding politicians that cared about all of us. They never even considered promoting hate and telling blatant lies to Americans back then. They would have been held accountable. If not by their peers, by the American voters.
As we grew up in the city, my buddy Allen and I purchased matching Huffy 10 speed bikes. We were free to ride literally anywhere we wished. We put hundreds of miles on those bikes. Then one day a buddy of ours, Dave, brought his fancy race bike over to go out riding with us. Well Dave was teaching us about centrifugal force. We soaked it up one morning sitting in my garage. He explained that the faster you rode your bike, when you turned a corner, if you really leaned that bike over, that centrifugal force pushed your bike tire harder into the pavement and it would NOT slip. We even talked about the motorcycle circle track racers that lean so far over, their knee has a steel plate covering it that would drag the pavement and spark.
Well, I was sold and feeling bullet proof. We proceeded to the BIGGEST Hill we could find. I volunteered to be first. I was pedaling that Huffy so hard it was difficult to keep the front wheel on the pavement. I hit a new personal best land speed record as I approached the first sharp corner. I leaned that bike, just like we talked about! Before I knew it, I was sliding on my belly, backwards, on the asphalt. Everything went into slow motion as I could feel the road rash as it was happening. Then my body bumped up and over the curb. I finally came to rest in someone else’s yard, wincing from the groin area pain that was inflicted by the curb jump, front-side down. I looked up to see my 2 buddies, literally on the pavement laughing uncontrollably! I could feel the love as the wet grass and mud soaked my white t-shirt and jeans! (Thanks Al & Dave 😂) I would mention by buddy Mark but, he was never mean to me!! (Thank you for that Mark)
Looking back, since we were in my garage waiting for the rain to stop before we could go riding, a wet road was probably not the best testing grounds for our new theory! Anyway, being a boy, I got up, shook it off and we went riding.
To this day, I still drive slower on wet roads!
Stepping back a few years, I made it to my 8th birthday, my mom enrolled me in the Cub Scouts (Thank You Sheila and Joe). Sheila was my den mother. I met even more neighborhood friends to play with. These were such fun times. When we were old enough, we graduated up to the Boy Scouts (Thank You Gene and Pat). Gene was our troop leader. I absolutely loved my time in the Boy Scouts. We went on an overnight campout once a month. I was so excited every single trip.
I went on to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout with my neighborhood buddy Michael (Thank You Leroy and Claudia). (Also, Thank You Mom!)
I learned a ton about honor, respect and how you should treat other people. I still try to do a good deed every single day of my life.
Eagle Scouts is the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America. To date,
Former President Gerald Ford is the only US President to achieve this award for Leadership...Service...Character.
There have been a few other prominent Eagle Scouts over the years:
Neil Armstrong (First man to stand on the moon)
Michael Bloomberg
Willie Banks
Mike Rowe
Sam Walton
Bill Marriott
Steven Spielberg
In high school I ran long distance track my sophomore year (Thank You Coach Coleman). I ran the ½ mile, 1 mile and some relays. However, when I turned 16, I took a job, bought a car and a I found a girlfriend. Those 3 kept me too busy for scouts and track
I had my driver’s license the day I turned 16 (Thank You Mom!). I looked in the Kansas City Star classified ads and found a job at McDonalds on Noland Rd, Independence, MO. I earned the minimum wage of $3.35 per hour. Besides the free food on breaks, I absolutely disliked this job. I wanted to be outside. After 2 weeks, I found a help wanted ad for a dairy farm in Blue Springs, MO. I landed that job and LOVED every minute (Thank You Doug and Kathy). I only received $3.00 per hour because agriculture did not have to pay minimum wage. I did not care at all. Over the summer I worked 60-70 hours per week and was raking in the cash! We milked between 70-80 Holstein cows, twice a day. 5 AM and 4 PM. I milked, fed cows, cleaned the barn and cow lots, put up hay in the summer and helped cut silage in the fall. I even assisted cleaning out a couple uterine infections! And No, I was not the long glove guy, I just manned the ‘Pine Scented’ air freshener as farmer Doug laughed at me!
After each milking, one of us had to feed the little calves. We filled two, 5-gallon buckets with fresh milk. We then carried those full buckets about 500 feet to their pen. I would walk about 100 feet and put the buckets down because the handle hurt my hands. After 30 seconds or so, I picked them up and tried to walk another 100 feet. One day the farmer’s dad, who was like 100 years old, at least to me, asked “why do you keep stopping” I said, “because the handle hurts my hand”. To which he replied, “What do you think will happen if you keep walking the whole distance and tough out the pain?” “Do you think your fingers will fall off?” Well, I picked up those buckets and made it the remaining 300 feet and all my fingers were still in place. I never stopped again to rest and have been working hard ever since! (Thank You Martin)
I learned a lot during my time on the farm. That is what gives me my Love and Passion for farmers, small towns and rural America. Unlike the other City Politicians, I support rural America with Experience, Truth and Honesty. I realize my fellow city slicker candidates just try to convince some people for the rural votes!
I proudly graduated from Fort Osage high school in 1986. Independence, MO.
GO INDIANS!
After graduation, I moved out to my own place and immediately went to work and have not slowed since. That summer I started with a local construction company as a laborer and worked up to a rough-in carpenter. (Thank You Mikey, Pat, Jim, Marty and Todd, for getting me the job) I met one of my best buddies and ultimately, his two brothers and sister that had moved down from Iowa. He started a small construction business and hired me. (Thank You Bob) We built quite a few decks, finished basements, converted a garage to living space, and did one room addition.
We also had the pleasure of building a repelling tower for the local Girl Scout camp. (Oh, the stories I could tell about my time with the adult camp counselors!! 😇) I still gladly buy Girl Scout cookies to this day…with a smile!
Towards the end of our short self-employed careers, we helped build my parents their new house. We had the best time. We just never charged enough and ended up getting “real jobs”.
We both started working for a former construction customer of ours. (Thank You Ivan and Ardith) They ran a tool and die company that supplied molds to the plastic food industry, R&D Tool and Engineering. They later rebranded to R&D Leverage. My buddy started by learning how to run CNC machinery. I started by learning to be an industrial electrician. The owner was one of the nicest, most caring and giving businessmen I have ever met. (We need more like him today!) He and his wife took care of all their employees. He hired us because he liked us. There was no application, interview or probationary period. He simply asked us “What would you guys like to do for me?” We discussed, we shook hands and I worked there for 29 years and 11 months.
This was small business America! This company supported hundreds of local Americans with good paying jobs and great benefits.
I took a few targeted industrial electrical classes at our local community college. These classes gave me a great head start. Plus, I had an on-staff electrician as my mentor. (Thank you Tony) I worked as their industrial electrician for about 2 years. During that time my mentor gave me a computer and started teaching me software development. (Thank You, again, Tony) Eventually they hired a new electrician (Thank You George) and I became a fulltime database software developer. That career took me through the rest of my 27 years at “The Tool”, as we called it.
I left R&D to help my son in a business he had started years earlier. (Thank You Son) I worked as a garage door technician right up until I was elected President of the United States of America.
Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he? 😂.
Well in 2023, I finally had the opportunity to watch my first live Nascar race in Kansas City, KS. I had heard about all the Red-Necks at the races but wow! Now I completely understand. The seats all faced due east. By the time the sun went down behind the bleachers, I was officially a Sunburnt Red Neck as well 😂. Besides a little beer spilled on my back, which actually felt good, it was a great time. You cannot explain the “Rumble” of those motors…You must go experience a race for yourself! By the way, the day they go all electric, the race will be over!
The Nascar community in Kansas City is about as core American group as you get. They are from all walks of life and income levels. Everyone I met was friendly and passionate about their sport. I hope to go again, soon!!
Back tracking, somewhere around 2005, I had an elderly friend give me a book. (Thank You Ken) I kind of laughed to myself because I did not like to read books. I thought I was DONE learning when I graduated high school. However, I started to read it and could not put it down. I read about things that I had never heard before. One that sticks out most is “Never say, I cannot afford it. Instead, always ask, how can I afford it?” HUGE difference! Once you say, “I can’t afford it”, you have already given up. Stop...think, and make a plan. Sit on that question every night before you fall asleep, the answers will come to you. That book was “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” written by Richard Kiyosaki. That book started me on a different path in life. I now own over 400 books, from different authors, in my personal collection.
“Not all Readers are Leaders, but All Leaders are Readers.”~Harry S. Truman
Sorry to be so bold but Everyone needs to read books to help educate themself further.
“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”~ Mark Twain
Any subject that interests you, is a great subject. I realize a lot of you read “Stuff” and “Propaganda” every day on the internet, social media, and your phones. It is NOT The Same Thing. Put the phone down and pick up a book!
Years back I personally started reading self-help and non-fiction books and they really opened my eyes. I did not care to help myself that much, however I could start to see others that needed help. I could also start to see what the Huge Corporations and Billionaire politicians were doing to all of us. Back in 2008 I was prodded enough to go out and vote for Barack. I loved his enthusiasm and I knew that man was my pick and I have no regrets. With all the spin from the far-right, he started his career for the betterment of the average man and women in America. However, from that day forward, I never spent any time researching any other political races. I had a life to live and at the time, could not see the value in voting. Today, Lordy Heck, get me to my voting booth! 😂 I am ready to help change some lives!
That was my only involvement in politics until the 2020 election false claims started to fly on the far-right news channel and websites. Within a couple short weeks, America knew there was no massive voting issues. Quite the contrary as we all found out. It really perturbed me to watch all the puppets in Congress stand up on TV, in front of the world, and support that one BIG LIE. They looked me straight in the eyes and lied to my face. This was completely overwhelming for me personally. That was the day I started to care about politics here in the United States. Especially after the 20+ court cases brought on by the far-right supporters that were all dismissed by the courts, for ‘No Merit’. This was not politics, this was the American Legal System doing their non-bias jobs! (THANK YOU to all that stood up to the abuse, for the rest of us!) The real crime was the fact the Fox was guarding the chicken coop and not telling them the truth!
Like I always say, there are Tens of Millions of Great Republicans, Democrats and Independents. We just need new, fresh leaders, on both sides of the aisle.
I have always been a dreamer. I started having dreams about things I did not even know existed. I just started writing them down on paper. Before long I released a short story book called “Stump the Wolf”. However, it was directed more at individual political offices. I soon come to realize, like it or not, these men and women in Congress and a few governors were all just puppets for some filthy-rich men. It was NOT them making the decisions. Someone else was pulling their strings. My dreams switched and I started over to write, “The Evil Puppets”. A love story between an IRS Agent and a small town grocery store owner with an Evil twist.
We have all heard the saying “Money is the Root of all Evil” Well Mark Twain and I agree that, “The Lack of Money is the Root of all Evil”. Especially when it was stolen from you in an “Over-Inflated” inflation by the Giant Corporations, and Over-Spending and Over-Taxation by our government. Not to mention the Huge Tax Cuts for the Super-Rich! (These moneys are what our government used to help run on and supported the United States and all of us citizens.) Our huge national debt is out of wack because of the Billions if not Trillions of dollars the Giant Corporations get to squirrel away!
There is ZERO value in having thousands of Billionaires in the USA. Not when we have homeless and starving children.
With that said, I will fight for you to help get our money back!
Businesses need to be Local and Take American Cash to continue my support. You do not have to use cash, however, they should accept cash. Those are the banks and businesses we need to support!
I only ask you to find a passion to also help others as well. In any aspect of life that you enjoy. Life is not all about you or me, it is about Us and helping each other!
Thank You for your time,
Mike
P.S. Please help by sharing my website with anyone that wants a better life for themself or their Grandkids!
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