Don's Tuesday Column

     THE WAY I SEE T   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   11/07/2023

         The Senator, EV scam, and a pot shop

First, another life’s chapter, hoping the memories aren’t lost. For bettor or worse, Dad’s job at Eureka-Williams in Bloomington, Illinois, came to an end; he was transferred to Canastota, New York, to turn around a factory that made school buses and military equipment.

What needed “turning around” was un-profitability due to union intransigence over efficiency, work rules and wage concessions, not unlike America’s current union vs. management conflicts. This Italian-American enclave in upstate New York, with rumored Mafia-type personalities, encouraged “feather nesting,” “gold-bricking,” and relatives covering for each other’s slacking off from, well, their jobs.

After Dad passed decades ago, we siblings gathered to reminisce and review 8 mm films we had of our family times and travels, and peruse a scrapbook of newspaper clippings from that period. They included the contract offers, the union rejections and, eventually, the company moving operations to a non-union Southern state.

Beyond news stories, we remembered going with Dad to the factory on the weekend (maybe to give Mom a break), the huge pieces of equipment, metallic shavings everywhere, and the smells of machine oil. Not having a clue what Dad was doing in an inactive factory, it was kind of an adventure.

I remember sitting at a long table in an Italian family’s home; they invited Dad and family to share a genuine Italian dinner. I also recalled being tagged as the kids of the guy who was upsetting the cushy apple cart at the main employer in town. Not a social bed of roses.

For 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and 6^th grades, I carried my book bag and trumpet to two schools, one of which had weekly sojourns to a church for lessons of that nature. We hadn’t a clue how “un-American” it was. The walks were an exercise in skipping over the cracks, so as to not “break your mother’s back,” or some such ditty.

Upon the factory closing, Dad got a management job at General Electric in nearby Syracuse, where I remember union strikes, related conflicts and property damage. A Lutheran church in Oneida, New York saw us on Sundays, when my voice joined the choir, augmenting my music appreciation by playing trumpet in the band.

A temporarily-rented summer house gave us an idyllic beach front site on Lake Oneida, where we learned to water ski, surely testing Dad’s patience as we endlessly fell down, while Dad circled back to try again. The historic Erie Canal gave us playful distractions.

Winters saw us sledding on hillsides, aiming for bumps for the thrill of getting air born. Summers involved “field trips” to nearby theme parks.

Last week, I met our new State Senator, Brian Dahle, at his visitors’ center meet-and-greet. He was probably a little apprehensive at the approaching long-haired, bearded guy (50 years of haircuts and shaving being abandoned). I referenced my Daily News column and that I was a “friendly.”

I mentioned a criticism leveled when he first ran, that he was accepting teachers’ union money and might be influenced thereby in Sacramento. He said he took contributions from any local source, including teachers, but that the state unions funded his (Democrat) opponents. Fair enough, as the local teachers’ union has purchased a table regularly at the annual Republican dinner without our feeling compromised over it.

Upon overhearing his interaction with numerous locals, I got the impression he was “one of us” in the sense of North State conservatism and concerns, even though, as one of only nine Republican state senators, his is an often-losing battle. I think we are well-served to have Brian Dahle on our side.

His aid, Sheldon, informed me of Dahle’s company being on the receiving end of California’s onerous and misguided trucking regulations, which have forced him to park his immaculately maintained “million-mile” rig, now disallowed due to arbitrary mandates. Would that voters reject California’s economic despotism.

It rears its ugly, anti-choice head over gas generators and appliances, sales of which will be banned in a few years. What jack-assed, ignorant, ideologically- and climate-driven, lunatic nonsense. We’re ruled by fools.

I couldn’t find many local Electric Vehicles (which cost about $10,000 over gas models), probably due to the common sense of local buyers not wanting to get saddled with the burden of running out of juice before getting to Oregon, Sacramento or S.F. without scrambling for an hour-long recharge instead of a 5-minute fill-up.

Look up “Toyota Chair Speaks the Charged Truth About EVs,” and “The true cost of an EV? Think tank claims subsidies for electric vehicles cost $50,000 PER CAR over a ten-year period” (Dailymail.com). “Federal and state subsidies have artificially driven up electric car sales; But EVs cost everyone, according to the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Ford said this month that it incurs a loss of around $36,000 on each EV it sells.”

Facts: “‘True Cost’ of EV Fueling Equivalent to $17.33 per Gallon of Gas: Report” (theepochtimes.com).

Upon the “Grand Opening” of a Main Street “pot shop,” Red Bluff’s collective I.Q. will begin declining.

Happy 248^th birthday, United States Marine Corp (November 10).