Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Great-Grandfather Beitz
This will be a short post. Just received an e-mail from our daughter Joan, who is the family historian, bless her little heart. In the e-mail were some pictures from my Mothers side of the family. I have always thought that we were short lived in the Howe and Beitz, however it seems that my Great-GrandFather Jacob Beitz lived to the ripe old age of 89, so I guess we are not so short lived at all. I'm not sure about my oldest Brother and Sister, but am pretty sure I am to only one of the younger kids to actually have met our Grandfather Wendel William Beitz. Shortly after I joined the Navy in Dec 1953, I was sent to Bainbridge Maryland to attend Quartermaster "A" school where I was suppose to learn Navigation and Visual Communications, hah, little did they know, but that is a story for a different time. During one of the long weekends I decided to hitchhike to Buffalo New York to visit my Mom's family a distance of about 380 miles. On arrival I stayed with one of Moms sisters don't remember her name, Mom came from a large family 11 brothers and sisters. Anyway, it seems there was some kinda feud going on within the Beitz family but they put their differences aside so I could meet as much of the family as I could on such a short visit. On Saturday morning we went to another sisters house where Mom's dad, my Grandfather was staying. He wasn't in the room when we all came traipsing in but someone went upstairs to get him When he came downstairs, my Aunt said "Dad this is Jim, Evy's youngest son", his response, "Evy?, who in the hell is Evy?". "You know Evelyn, she married Walt Howe", Grandfather Beitz - "Oh yeah that one armed son-of-bitch that took my daughter out to the Indians". Aunt, "I think you should go back upstairs and lie down Dad". That meeting lasted about 3 minutes, one of the longest three minutes of my life. I really felt sorry for all of the people there, Mom hadn't seen any of her family since it must have been around 1930 when they left Buffalo and moved to Ill. I remember Mom telling us that when they decided to move out to Washington State her whole family was in an uproar, they were terrified that everyone in the family would get scalped by the "injuns".
Alaska Cruise Jun 2012
As promised here is more of my later life and some of my older life. We just returned from a Cruise/Land tour to Alaska with our Daughter and Son-in-law. And here comes the some of the older life. For those of you who don't know our Daughter, her name is Linda and she just celebrated her 53rd birthday, which is quite an accomplishment, as you will understand as we go on with this story. Linda was born 11 Jul 1958 at the Army Hospital in Fort Lawton WA, which was located in Seattle on really prime real estate. I was at the time still stationed on my first ship, USS Whitehurst DE634, that was just transferred from the active fleet in Pearl Harbor to become a Reserve training ship in Seattle, which just happened to be my hometown. We arrived in Seattle, I believe in Sept or Oct of '57 and Rae preceded us there. She became pregnant shortly after the ship's arrival, I don't know how that happened, one of the mysteries of life.
At any-rate it turned out to be an extremely difficult pregnancy for Rae. At one point, in the spring, I don't remember the exact date, some time in Apr or May, during one of her many stays in the hospital, I was home with our oldest daughter when I received a phone call from the hospital telling me I should come in because they weren't sure that Rae would make it through the night due to her pernicious vomiting that they could not control and anemia. When I arrived and after I saw what bad shape she was in I spoke at length with her Doctor, an Army Major, and begged him to take the baby and save my wife, he refused, I guess because that was the law in those days, at least for the Army. As you can tell, Linda made it, just barely but she did, and we are eternally grateful that she did. I told the Doctor that my ship was scheduled to depart Seattle for 6 weeks of training in San Diego and he told me that I could not go, he didn't understand the way the Navy works. I went back to my ship the next day and requested some leave and was refused. When I went back and told the Doctor what the ship said he told me to stand by. Shortly a Army enlisted man, don't know their rating structure at all, came into the waiting room and asked for me, when I identified myself
he said come with me, so being a dumb ass 2nd class I did, and when took a ride back to my ship where he asked me who was in-charge. I told him that the Executive Officer was the man he would probably want to see, he went aboard and asked the people on the Quarterdeck to speak to the Exec. of course they wanted to know why. When he told them he had a letter from the Commanding General of Fort Lawton they offered to take it to the Exec., he said no that he had to deliver it personally. After the trip back to Fort Lawton, I returned to the Ship, where I was told the Exec. wanted to see me immediately. He was livid, I had no idea what was in that letter. But the Exec. told me that I had to put in a request for "Humanitarian Shore Duty", and also 10 day of emergency leave. He also informed me in no uncertain terms that the request for shore duty would not be granted and that I would have to pay my own way to San Diego when my leave was up. I do remember this was on a Friday. I got Rae out of the Hospital on Sunday, and on Tuesday we were sitting in our house, watching TV and someone knocked on the door, it was a Western Union messenger with my orders to 4 months "Humanitarian Shore Duty" at the Naval Reserve Training Center in Seattle. As I said Linda was born 11 Jul 1958, and an uglier baby you couldn't imagine, full of scratches and bruises, Rae had an extremely long labor, and when she first saw her newborn she cried. It only took about 3 weeks when most of the marks, we thought some of them might be permanent birthmarks cleared up and she turned into the sweetest, holy terror a parent could hope for. I guess this is one of the times that as the song goes "some of Gods greatest gifts are unanswered prayers".
Well, that was more than I had planned on saying, but I guess I have been known to run off at the mouth (or pen as it were) occasionally.
Linda has been wanting to take an Alaskan Cruise sometime and this seemed to be the best year for it to happen, so we made our reservations on Princess Cruises to depart Vancouver BC, Saturday June 23, sail north with stops in Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway before arriving at Whittier Alaska to disembark and begin the land portion of the Cruise.
Because we had to take a motor coach, (bussie for you lowbrows), from SeaTac Intl. Airport to Vancouver, Linda volunteered(?) to drive, from Chehalis, they picked us up at about 6:00AM, check in time was 8:30AM. Everything worked great, we were a little early which was okay because I think all 4 of us hate the idea of being late to anything. Beautiful drive up I-5 through Seattle and points north. The last time I crossed the border at Blaine WA was about 63 or 64 years ago, a lot different now where we just drove through, the Border people asked if we enjoyed our stay in Canada, this time we all had to disembark from the bus, have our passports checked, I don't think they checked the luggage tho. Anyway - we arrived at the pier where the Diamond Princess awaited our arrival prior to sailing. Both couples had balcony cabins which makes for a much more enjoyable cruise. We spent Sunday at sea, ate dinner in the semi-formal dining room, (don't have to dress up tho). If you have never been on a cruise eating in the dining rooms are a real treat. We had two waiters, with a menu that is out of this world. The portions are well within reason, that's the reason Rae and I prefer the dining room as opposed to the Buffet, where you can eat all you want and usually do. The only time we didn't eat dinner in a dining room was on dress up nights, I suppose we could have but think we would have been uncomfortable doing so in casual clothes. In the evening we went to a stage show, they have two showings each night. Some are stage productions and others were a magician and a standup comic. In Ketchikan all four of us went on a Lighthouse, Totems and Eagles tour, really just a bus tour of Ketchikan and surrounding areas, but the tour guides make these tours interesting. From Juneau, Rae and I went on a Whale watching and Wildlife Quest, and if we hadn't had enough water on the trip up this was a boat tour. We were quite fortunate, we were able to observe, humpback whales, a pod of orca's(killer whales), sea lions and many eagles both mature and adult. Linda and Vic took a Bike and Tram Elevation Sensation ride and from what they said they had a great time. I might mention here that the weather in all three of our ports was not the best, but I assume that is to be expected in Southeast Alaska. On to Skagway, where we joined together to tak the Rail, Summit, Suspension Bridge and Garden lunch tour. This consisted of a train ride over the basic same route the the Alaskan Gold miners took from Skagway to the Yukon on their search for Gold. From what the tour guide told us very few of the many adventurers were successful in the quest for gold. The scenery on this trip was magnificent. Saw some bears, mountain goats and of course eagles. The tour takes you into Canada, so another trip through customs, not quite as painful going into and coming out of Canada on the way back. The suspension bridge was fun to cross, not really that exciting, its really well constructed out of metal, but it does sway somewhat. Had lunch at a quaint little restaurant farm style place and had a nice tour of the farm afterwards. Then on to Whittier, but on the way spent an entire day viewing some of the many Glaciers that make up Alaska, in Glacier Bay and College Fjord. They are really fascinating, think Linda and Vic really enjoyed that part of the Cruise. During this part of the cruise we were able to see several bears, eagles and whales. Arrived in Whittier on Saturday Jun 30., where we transferred to buses for our trip to Denali, or Mt. McKinley, whichever you prefer. Some Alaskans object to calling it Mt. McKinley, never really understood why, but it seems he never once visited it. Seems to me if someone name the largest Mountain on the North American Continent after me, I sure as hell would have gone and visited it at least once. Of course I can understand why the native Alaskans want to call it Denali, that was the original name, oh well can't please anyone. Don't think Vic enjoyed this part of the trip too much, to much sitting on the bus, as old as we are it was welcome for us. The weather cooperated for this part of the trip, although we only got a glimpse of Denali, going with the natives cause I hate politicians. Took a "nature" walk of about 3 hours by Byers lake, think Vic enjoyed this part of the trip, he just doesn't like sitting for such long periods of time, can't blame him really. The tour guide was quite interesting and informative. The only problem was that Linda got eaten up by mosquito's, guess Mom and I are too old and tough to be any good for them, not sure what Vic's problem was. The tour guide, whom they call an "expert naturalist" was able to provide us with some a "healing salve" that Linda said really helped with her bites. Didn't see any wild life on this part of the tour, but did see a lot of flora, didn't realize there are so many poisonous plants in the world. Spent the night at the McKinley Princess Lodge. Unlike the cruise part of the trip, we had to pay for our meals, and let me tell you eating in Alaska is an expensive proposition. Caught the Coach to our next stop at Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge. Aren't they clever name one Lodge McKinley and the other one Denali, try to keep everyone happy. The coach trip was about 2 1/4 hours and was a pretty interesting ride. One thing I will say about Princess Cruises they do train their guides, bus drivers and all the rest of their help extremely well. Some of our hotel chains and transportation companies, especially AmTrak could take some lessons from them.
After arrival at Denali we took another Bus into Denali National Park, (actually Denali not McKinley). This was a 5 hour tour on a converted school bus. The national park service will only allow certain types of buses inside the park confines and the normal tour coaches don't meet their requirements. This was a great tour, it is really amazing what the Glaciers have done to the countryside. We didn't see to much in the way of wildlife, but did get to watch several Caribou by a river. The next day was on to Fairbanks. But, before we arrived at the hotel we were dropped off at an authentic stern-wheeler for cruise on the Chena and Tanana Rivers. Because this is within the confines of Fairbanks, some of the homes along the river were just fabulous, still wouldn't want to live there, with to much of the year without sunshine. Surprisingly Fairbanks is quite arid, doesn't get much more rain than San Diego. During the cruise we had a bush pilot demonstrate take off and landing alongside the boat. Along the way we stopped at an "Indian Village" where we saw demonstrations of salmon drying, a fish wheel, and native arts and crafts put on by the native Athabascan's. We also observed from the stern-wheeler Susan Butcher's famous Iditarod sled dog team. Prior to the cruise we had lunch, almost like a schoolroom lunchroom, but it was good, and plentiful. After the cruise we were whisked by motor coach to our hotel the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge. Next day up early and off to the airport for our trip home. One thing I would like to point out here, I love to fly, but have avoided it as much as possible after listening to the horror stories of how the TSA treats people and in invasive searches one has to go through. Now, I don't know if what happened to us is peculiar to Fairbanks Airport or not, but those TSA agents were professional, courteous and gently with us. The total body scan, is nothing, all one sees is basically an outline. There were a couple of spots on mine and when I asked what they were the agent told me that it was nothing and explained that those things happen occasionally. Let me warn anyone who does fly, everything must come out of your pockets, including kleenexs. Linda accidentally left some kind of bottle of lotion in her carry-on luggage, the TSA agent had her take it out, examined it to make sure it wasn't anything prohibited and gave it back to her. If this is the small price we have to pay to be able to fly safely, I don't mind at all.
At any-rate it turned out to be an extremely difficult pregnancy for Rae. At one point, in the spring, I don't remember the exact date, some time in Apr or May, during one of her many stays in the hospital, I was home with our oldest daughter when I received a phone call from the hospital telling me I should come in because they weren't sure that Rae would make it through the night due to her pernicious vomiting that they could not control and anemia. When I arrived and after I saw what bad shape she was in I spoke at length with her Doctor, an Army Major, and begged him to take the baby and save my wife, he refused, I guess because that was the law in those days, at least for the Army. As you can tell, Linda made it, just barely but she did, and we are eternally grateful that she did. I told the Doctor that my ship was scheduled to depart Seattle for 6 weeks of training in San Diego and he told me that I could not go, he didn't understand the way the Navy works. I went back to my ship the next day and requested some leave and was refused. When I went back and told the Doctor what the ship said he told me to stand by. Shortly a Army enlisted man, don't know their rating structure at all, came into the waiting room and asked for me, when I identified myself
he said come with me, so being a dumb ass 2nd class I did, and when took a ride back to my ship where he asked me who was in-charge. I told him that the Executive Officer was the man he would probably want to see, he went aboard and asked the people on the Quarterdeck to speak to the Exec. of course they wanted to know why. When he told them he had a letter from the Commanding General of Fort Lawton they offered to take it to the Exec., he said no that he had to deliver it personally. After the trip back to Fort Lawton, I returned to the Ship, where I was told the Exec. wanted to see me immediately. He was livid, I had no idea what was in that letter. But the Exec. told me that I had to put in a request for "Humanitarian Shore Duty", and also 10 day of emergency leave. He also informed me in no uncertain terms that the request for shore duty would not be granted and that I would have to pay my own way to San Diego when my leave was up. I do remember this was on a Friday. I got Rae out of the Hospital on Sunday, and on Tuesday we were sitting in our house, watching TV and someone knocked on the door, it was a Western Union messenger with my orders to 4 months "Humanitarian Shore Duty" at the Naval Reserve Training Center in Seattle. As I said Linda was born 11 Jul 1958, and an uglier baby you couldn't imagine, full of scratches and bruises, Rae had an extremely long labor, and when she first saw her newborn she cried. It only took about 3 weeks when most of the marks, we thought some of them might be permanent birthmarks cleared up and she turned into the sweetest, holy terror a parent could hope for. I guess this is one of the times that as the song goes "some of Gods greatest gifts are unanswered prayers".
Well, that was more than I had planned on saying, but I guess I have been known to run off at the mouth (or pen as it were) occasionally.
Linda has been wanting to take an Alaskan Cruise sometime and this seemed to be the best year for it to happen, so we made our reservations on Princess Cruises to depart Vancouver BC, Saturday June 23, sail north with stops in Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway before arriving at Whittier Alaska to disembark and begin the land portion of the Cruise.
Because we had to take a motor coach, (bussie for you lowbrows), from SeaTac Intl. Airport to Vancouver, Linda volunteered(?) to drive, from Chehalis, they picked us up at about 6:00AM, check in time was 8:30AM. Everything worked great, we were a little early which was okay because I think all 4 of us hate the idea of being late to anything. Beautiful drive up I-5 through Seattle and points north. The last time I crossed the border at Blaine WA was about 63 or 64 years ago, a lot different now where we just drove through, the Border people asked if we enjoyed our stay in Canada, this time we all had to disembark from the bus, have our passports checked, I don't think they checked the luggage tho. Anyway - we arrived at the pier where the Diamond Princess awaited our arrival prior to sailing. Both couples had balcony cabins which makes for a much more enjoyable cruise. We spent Sunday at sea, ate dinner in the semi-formal dining room, (don't have to dress up tho). If you have never been on a cruise eating in the dining rooms are a real treat. We had two waiters, with a menu that is out of this world. The portions are well within reason, that's the reason Rae and I prefer the dining room as opposed to the Buffet, where you can eat all you want and usually do. The only time we didn't eat dinner in a dining room was on dress up nights, I suppose we could have but think we would have been uncomfortable doing so in casual clothes. In the evening we went to a stage show, they have two showings each night. Some are stage productions and others were a magician and a standup comic. In Ketchikan all four of us went on a Lighthouse, Totems and Eagles tour, really just a bus tour of Ketchikan and surrounding areas, but the tour guides make these tours interesting. From Juneau, Rae and I went on a Whale watching and Wildlife Quest, and if we hadn't had enough water on the trip up this was a boat tour. We were quite fortunate, we were able to observe, humpback whales, a pod of orca's(killer whales), sea lions and many eagles both mature and adult. Linda and Vic took a Bike and Tram Elevation Sensation ride and from what they said they had a great time. I might mention here that the weather in all three of our ports was not the best, but I assume that is to be expected in Southeast Alaska. On to Skagway, where we joined together to tak the Rail, Summit, Suspension Bridge and Garden lunch tour. This consisted of a train ride over the basic same route the the Alaskan Gold miners took from Skagway to the Yukon on their search for Gold. From what the tour guide told us very few of the many adventurers were successful in the quest for gold. The scenery on this trip was magnificent. Saw some bears, mountain goats and of course eagles. The tour takes you into Canada, so another trip through customs, not quite as painful going into and coming out of Canada on the way back. The suspension bridge was fun to cross, not really that exciting, its really well constructed out of metal, but it does sway somewhat. Had lunch at a quaint little restaurant farm style place and had a nice tour of the farm afterwards. Then on to Whittier, but on the way spent an entire day viewing some of the many Glaciers that make up Alaska, in Glacier Bay and College Fjord. They are really fascinating, think Linda and Vic really enjoyed that part of the Cruise. During this part of the cruise we were able to see several bears, eagles and whales. Arrived in Whittier on Saturday Jun 30., where we transferred to buses for our trip to Denali, or Mt. McKinley, whichever you prefer. Some Alaskans object to calling it Mt. McKinley, never really understood why, but it seems he never once visited it. Seems to me if someone name the largest Mountain on the North American Continent after me, I sure as hell would have gone and visited it at least once. Of course I can understand why the native Alaskans want to call it Denali, that was the original name, oh well can't please anyone. Don't think Vic enjoyed this part of the trip too much, to much sitting on the bus, as old as we are it was welcome for us. The weather cooperated for this part of the trip, although we only got a glimpse of Denali, going with the natives cause I hate politicians. Took a "nature" walk of about 3 hours by Byers lake, think Vic enjoyed this part of the trip, he just doesn't like sitting for such long periods of time, can't blame him really. The tour guide was quite interesting and informative. The only problem was that Linda got eaten up by mosquito's, guess Mom and I are too old and tough to be any good for them, not sure what Vic's problem was. The tour guide, whom they call an "expert naturalist" was able to provide us with some a "healing salve" that Linda said really helped with her bites. Didn't see any wild life on this part of the tour, but did see a lot of flora, didn't realize there are so many poisonous plants in the world. Spent the night at the McKinley Princess Lodge. Unlike the cruise part of the trip, we had to pay for our meals, and let me tell you eating in Alaska is an expensive proposition. Caught the Coach to our next stop at Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge. Aren't they clever name one Lodge McKinley and the other one Denali, try to keep everyone happy. The coach trip was about 2 1/4 hours and was a pretty interesting ride. One thing I will say about Princess Cruises they do train their guides, bus drivers and all the rest of their help extremely well. Some of our hotel chains and transportation companies, especially AmTrak could take some lessons from them.
After arrival at Denali we took another Bus into Denali National Park, (actually Denali not McKinley). This was a 5 hour tour on a converted school bus. The national park service will only allow certain types of buses inside the park confines and the normal tour coaches don't meet their requirements. This was a great tour, it is really amazing what the Glaciers have done to the countryside. We didn't see to much in the way of wildlife, but did get to watch several Caribou by a river. The next day was on to Fairbanks. But, before we arrived at the hotel we were dropped off at an authentic stern-wheeler for cruise on the Chena and Tanana Rivers. Because this is within the confines of Fairbanks, some of the homes along the river were just fabulous, still wouldn't want to live there, with to much of the year without sunshine. Surprisingly Fairbanks is quite arid, doesn't get much more rain than San Diego. During the cruise we had a bush pilot demonstrate take off and landing alongside the boat. Along the way we stopped at an "Indian Village" where we saw demonstrations of salmon drying, a fish wheel, and native arts and crafts put on by the native Athabascan's. We also observed from the stern-wheeler Susan Butcher's famous Iditarod sled dog team. Prior to the cruise we had lunch, almost like a schoolroom lunchroom, but it was good, and plentiful. After the cruise we were whisked by motor coach to our hotel the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge. Next day up early and off to the airport for our trip home. One thing I would like to point out here, I love to fly, but have avoided it as much as possible after listening to the horror stories of how the TSA treats people and in invasive searches one has to go through. Now, I don't know if what happened to us is peculiar to Fairbanks Airport or not, but those TSA agents were professional, courteous and gently with us. The total body scan, is nothing, all one sees is basically an outline. There were a couple of spots on mine and when I asked what they were the agent told me that it was nothing and explained that those things happen occasionally. Let me warn anyone who does fly, everything must come out of your pockets, including kleenexs. Linda accidentally left some kind of bottle of lotion in her carry-on luggage, the TSA agent had her take it out, examined it to make sure it wasn't anything prohibited and gave it back to her. If this is the small price we have to pay to be able to fly safely, I don't mind at all.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Okay, here we go again. Still up on Alaska Street. As I said before everything was rationed, including fuel for the furnace. Our furnace was a coal burner and as we were renting our landlord, I am guessing a little bit here, decided we shouldn't be wasting coal so he converted the coal furnace to sawdust. That was horrible stuff. They brought it in a large dump truck and just dumped it by the coal shoot and then we had to shovel it down to the basement. The pile of sawdust looked really soft and inviting and one of my brothers talked me into jumping into it which I did, I still itch from it. I don't remember exactly when we moved from Alaska Street to 33rd Ave So, but it was prior to the end of WWII. There were some things that went on on 33rd that I will not go into, leave it that it affected the remainder my life and my relations with most of my siblings, and pretty much led to my never really wanting to go home again. I remember moving day, and really the only thing I remember about it is that Dad had one heck of a tooth ache and apparently wasn't much help. People complain nowadays about not having enough room. Remember there were 7 people living in one house. The folks bought this house, it was less than 1,000 square feet. One bathroom, 2 and 1/2 bedrooms. The 1/2 bedroom was the boys room. It was an add-on to the original house. The folks put a bunk bed and one twin bed, there was room left for one (very) small chest of drawers. There was just barely enough room between the bunk beds and the twin bed for one person to stand up. A very small room. No insulation, one window, one bare light-bulb dangling from the overhead. As only fair I got the upper bunk, Bob would pay for that later. There were times when the ice was so thick on the inside of the window that you couldn't see out. We weren't on city sewage so we had a septic tank that was hooked up very well and a lot of raw sewage went straight under the house, not pleasant. The regular bedrooms weren't much bigger that the boys room but not as many people had to share them. The girls had the bedroom nearest the bathroom. Mom and Dad had to go through the girls room to get to the bathroom. The living room was large enough for an 8X12 rug with maybe 18" on all four sides. The one unique thing about this house was the living room floor. It was laid down similar to the floor you would find at a roller skating rink. It was made of solid oak about 1/2" thick by 2" wide by approximately 2' long. There were several of these pieces left over, for patching I guess. At any rate by the time the last of the Howe's left (Mom and Dad) all of those pieces were broken over one or other of the boys behind mostly Bills. Whenever i
Thursday, July 12, 2012
2018
Not sure if I still know how to use this site but will try.
Not long ago had a discussion with my Grandson-in-law, (whom I shall refer to as GIL)won't mention any names Josh, we discuss things, we don't debate, mainly because he would probably wipe up the floor with me. Anyway what we were discussing was the tax that the City of Seattle planned on placing on large companies to take care of their homeless problems. At the time the tax was going to be quite high, they since passed a lesser tax but still pretty damn high. My GIL thinks its a great idea because Amazon, the company that will pay the most tax, makes a ton of money, so therefore it should pay the most. Maybe so, but I disagree. I don't know anything about Mr. Bezos', he's way above my pay grade, but what I have been able to ascertain he started this company and made it into the tremendous success it is. I don't use Amazon, I like to feel something before I put out my hard earned cash for it. I don't know how hard Mr. Bezos' had to work to make his company as successful as it is but I'm sure he had to put a tremendous amount of foresight and effort into it. As I understand it the tax that has been enacted is based on net profits of a Company earnings over $20,000,000 per head of employees in Seattle, that's one hellva lot of money. Probably won't hurt Amazon too much, but in my view that is not the point. My point, if I may, is why should Amazon be punished for being successful. They are not the one's that caused the homeless problems. There are probably lots of reasons, one of which may be the way the local Governments have reacted to the problem. They have failed to enforce the laws of the City, County, State and Federal Government that have enabled people to flout the law and live their own way without any consequences. They tie the hands of their own law enforcement so Police Officers are unable to enforce laws that are on the books. Of course in today's society, for those in power, to ignore or even just disobey the laws of the State and Nation, for example Gov. Inslee's executive order doing away with the Death penalty, or the Attorney General declaring the State of Washington a "Sanctuary State", why should an ordinary citizen obey the laws. Even our Judges are ridiculous, for example the Judge that declared an Automobile ones home and therefore the police have to treat it as such, can't make them move or search or enforce laws already on the books. Amazon's profit margin is probably pretty good, but how about the Company that operates on a very slim profit margin what is this law going to do to them if all of their profits have to go to feeding and housing the homeless? And where does it stop, anyone who thinks that they don't make enough money to be threatened by this tax better think again, because it won't be long til the threshold of that tax will go down and eventually reach all of us. Never met a tax the politicians didn't like.
Now that I have got that off my chest, why do I feel the way I do. I was raised in a family that did not have very much in the way of money or good. My Dad was 100% disabled from the First World War, my mother had 12 children, of which only 5 lived (for honesty's sake I was the youngest, guess I broke the mold). I don't believe my Dad held a steady job for much longer than a year or two at the most. Mom worked at the Bon Marche (now Macy's) part time for over 30 years. We were never homeless. Didn't always know where the next meal was coming from, but don't ever remember going hungry. My Dad suffered from Shell Shock, what is now commonly referred to as PTSD, he, along with Mom and all my brothers and sisters turned out to be alcoholics, but all of them were successful in their careers. Dad was a racist, extremely bigoted. He had a name for all ethnic groups, none of which were flattering. Even though we had very little in the way of material goods we never, ever accepted any type of Charity.
If this works I will post more later on.
Not long ago had a discussion with my Grandson-in-law, (whom I shall refer to as GIL)won't mention any names Josh, we discuss things, we don't debate, mainly because he would probably wipe up the floor with me. Anyway what we were discussing was the tax that the City of Seattle planned on placing on large companies to take care of their homeless problems. At the time the tax was going to be quite high, they since passed a lesser tax but still pretty damn high. My GIL thinks its a great idea because Amazon, the company that will pay the most tax, makes a ton of money, so therefore it should pay the most. Maybe so, but I disagree. I don't know anything about Mr. Bezos', he's way above my pay grade, but what I have been able to ascertain he started this company and made it into the tremendous success it is. I don't use Amazon, I like to feel something before I put out my hard earned cash for it. I don't know how hard Mr. Bezos' had to work to make his company as successful as it is but I'm sure he had to put a tremendous amount of foresight and effort into it. As I understand it the tax that has been enacted is based on net profits of a Company earnings over $20,000,000 per head of employees in Seattle, that's one hellva lot of money. Probably won't hurt Amazon too much, but in my view that is not the point. My point, if I may, is why should Amazon be punished for being successful. They are not the one's that caused the homeless problems. There are probably lots of reasons, one of which may be the way the local Governments have reacted to the problem. They have failed to enforce the laws of the City, County, State and Federal Government that have enabled people to flout the law and live their own way without any consequences. They tie the hands of their own law enforcement so Police Officers are unable to enforce laws that are on the books. Of course in today's society, for those in power, to ignore or even just disobey the laws of the State and Nation, for example Gov. Inslee's executive order doing away with the Death penalty, or the Attorney General declaring the State of Washington a "Sanctuary State", why should an ordinary citizen obey the laws. Even our Judges are ridiculous, for example the Judge that declared an Automobile ones home and therefore the police have to treat it as such, can't make them move or search or enforce laws already on the books. Amazon's profit margin is probably pretty good, but how about the Company that operates on a very slim profit margin what is this law going to do to them if all of their profits have to go to feeding and housing the homeless? And where does it stop, anyone who thinks that they don't make enough money to be threatened by this tax better think again, because it won't be long til the threshold of that tax will go down and eventually reach all of us. Never met a tax the politicians didn't like.
Now that I have got that off my chest, why do I feel the way I do. I was raised in a family that did not have very much in the way of money or good. My Dad was 100% disabled from the First World War, my mother had 12 children, of which only 5 lived (for honesty's sake I was the youngest, guess I broke the mold). I don't believe my Dad held a steady job for much longer than a year or two at the most. Mom worked at the Bon Marche (now Macy's) part time for over 30 years. We were never homeless. Didn't always know where the next meal was coming from, but don't ever remember going hungry. My Dad suffered from Shell Shock, what is now commonly referred to as PTSD, he, along with Mom and all my brothers and sisters turned out to be alcoholics, but all of them were successful in their careers. Dad was a racist, extremely bigoted. He had a name for all ethnic groups, none of which were flattering. Even though we had very little in the way of material goods we never, ever accepted any type of Charity.
If this works I will post more later on.
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