E106-2 80s America Expand

For us, we began our “Great Adventure” during the 1980’s.  Let me take a moment to reflect what the 1980’s were like. (As well as to remove myself, and the reader, from the rewritten historical narrative. During the years of 2008 through 2016, there was an ACTIVE effort to rewrite history.)

I was married at the time.

The “Great Adventure” refers to the period in my life that began with my layoff as an Engineer to when I returned to the naval base at China Lake to complete my ELF training and entanglement.

For they were different than the 1960’s and 1970’s that I “grew up” in.  It was a time that was quite unique and very, very different from what the reader might experience today.

At this time, there were no cell-phones, the phones were either mounted on the wall, or were attached to it with a long cord. Computers existed, but were text only as green letters on a black screen… and were expensive!   D&D was very popular, and people watched TV at home (“Where’s the beef?”) as their primary source of information and amusement.

Cameras used film, and they came in little polypropylene containers that looked like Barbie-doll size trash cans. You had to buy the film and it was expensive.  A roll of twelve pictures would equal the cost of two Burger King lunches.

The so called “Silicon Valley” was just starting to take form. America was building up to finish the “Cold War” once and for all.  We were going to out-produce those pesky Russian Communists until they would need to give up.  (And, it worked!). The walls (figuratively and literally) came down.

Media was experimenting with CGI.  Their early efforts were cautiously embraced. As a result, Max Headroom was terribly popular.

Computers were just leaving the hobby realm and entering the work force.  Few people, aside from “nerds” owned a computer. The ones that were available were terribly expensive.  For instance a “large capacity” hard drive would be 10MB and cost nearly $4000.  The screen was monochrome and only presented text. It ran on MS DOS and utilized a “Dot Matrix” printer. Everything was off-white ABS plastic.

CDROM’s had yet to be popular.

So people used “floppy disks” to store their work on. Music was available on records, 8-track tapes (Still available in the 1980’s, but their late 1970’s “hey days” were over.), and cassette tapes.

You could join “record clubs” that would send you a weekly catalog where you could purchase music on image alone. They would “pull” people in by offering them ten free tapes, then once locked in, you needed to make so many purchases a year. They also did this with books.

Cordless telephones were just being made available.  Each one was large, and typically had an extendable metal antenna that you would need to extend to obtain a half-decent signal. (Watch the movie “Risky Business” to see an example of this.)

This was the decade when the Nintendo NES came into our lives.

Indeed, many of us spent our time typing “cd games” into old IBM computers, loading some beeping game or another. But when you really think about it, that’s not much different from today. We still have consoles, we still have computer games, and we definitely still have beeping.
The games themselves are different, the graphics are different (obviously much, much better), but the environment is still very similar.

You sit on a chair. You play.

“Must-see TV” (of course) meant “The Cosby Show”.

John Hughes movies were very popular and they were light, happy and full of 1980’s energy.  How can you forget the movies “Sixteen Candles”, “Ferris Buellers Day Off”,  “Weird Science”, or “Career Opportunities”.
Or what about John Cusack’s movies as “One Crazy Summer”, and “Better off Dead”.  All are classics.

While I would dress for work, I would often pass by kids going to school and I was constantly surprised with what they were wearing.  Typical attire, in California, seemed to be neon span

(Of course, I was in the middle of extreme world-line switching at the time.)

Work office attire consisted of polyester everything.  No one wore jeans or polo shirts.  Men wore ties on collared shirts.  Both the ties and the collars on the shirts tended to be wide. The colors were all tans and browns with a distinct movement towards pastels.
We all carried traditional briefcases. No one ever carried a backpack to work. If our bagged lunch would not fit inside the briefcase, we would carry it outside of it.

All offices had a large tureen of coffee.  Typically it was this huge metal cylinder with a spigot at the bottom.  It would peculate coffee just like a conventional peculator.
These tureens held maybe five gallons of water, and used up a sizable portion of a can of coffee to make.  The tureen would be on all working day. This was popular from my father’s generational period in the 1960’s thought the 70’s and 80’s up into the 1990’s.

Later on, into the middle 1990’s this was replaced by restaurant-style individual coffee pots cooking on burners.  Typically offices would use either two or four burner units.
(Six burner units were rare outside of restaurants.) Unlike the tureens that were maintained by the company purchasing coffee and employees being responsible for making the coffee, the individual coffee pots typically came as part of a “service”.
A person come come to the office every two weeks to make sure the coffee is stocked up properly and the machine was in working order. The cost for this service was much higher than just the cost of a coffee and tureen.

This added convenience for the workers came at a price. When the coffee came out of the tureen, it was free to the workers. Let me repeat. Work office coffee was FREE for the office workers.

Fast forward to the Bill Clinton presidency; the age of greed.

No one ever took up collections to fund the coffee.  That didn’t happen until much later in the 1990’s under President Bill Clinton.  (It wasn’t his fault.  He “inspired” everyone to go after money and become successful.  Everyone was trying to “find an angle”.

At that time everyone was trying to get rich.

Companies were trying all sorts of techniques to improve profits. The President at that time inspired CEO’s, who then implemented various “programs” to improve profits.
I’m sure that there are a number of notable Dilbert cartoons on this subject.) In this environment, coffee became a “perk” that companies would use to “attract” talent and retain employees.  Prior to that, it was an accepted norm.  Everyone EXPECTED free coffee at work.
(That, alongside with free health plans with no co-pays and no deductions from one’s paycheck.)

I was in my twenties.  The advantages of this was not appreciated until I was older. Ah, the generation before me had it so so good!

As an aside, as of 2018, coffee is still free to the office workers in the UK, Australia and China (that I know of).  It’s only in the USA that companies treat their employees as farmed cattle to exploit. (Indeed, I hear Google let’s all their employees drink for free or at low reduced prices, as long as you are not white or male…LOL.)

I owned a Beta-Max player.

In fact, I upgraded to the “super” Beta-Max player prior to purchasing the core unit. I guess that I was a little crazy about electronics at the time. However, I felt that buy purchasing the upgrade before I purchased the player gave me advantage.

I was correct. However, the advantage only lasted five years. Sigh.

I would be able to run off to the video store and rent a tape or two for the weekend. Over time, the high quality of Beta was replaced by the low-quality but low-cost VHS players. I like everyone else, eventually made the switch. Ah, it was a sad day indeed.  For a while, unable to go to the store to rent videos, we would watch the old Beta tapes that we had at the house.  Pickings were slim. We had “Roxanne” (Not to be confused with the television series of the same name.), “Spaced Invaders”, and “Soapdish”.

Carl’s Junior served food on wooden plates with a hot metal pan centered on it.  They used real metal utensils, and a real serrated edge knife with a wooden handle.  Drinks were provided in reusable brown plastic coffee cups, or tall plastic glasses for soda. A newspaper waited outside in a vending machine, and you could smoke in every restaurant. At that time, they still maintained a more-or-less hybrid existence; part restaurant / part fast food.  (Sort of like Denny’s today.) Now, of course, they have devolved into just another fast food franchise.

Cross walk signs were in English.  They did not use an array of LED diodes to form a picture of a standing or walking pedestrians. I guess that people then were able to read English, where today in the USA, you just are not ever sure.

Cell phones did not exist.  Therefore, it was easy back then to isolate from the rest of the world, now you’re surrounded by world’s noise everywhere. Then you could isolate yourself.  A quiet walk was for contemplation and enjoyment. It was possible.

Restaurants served a free tall glass of ice water with every meal, even for children.  People used toothpicks and the ashtray on the table.  (You could smoke in the restaurants as well, and buy your cigarettes out of a vending machine in the lobby.)

People smoked at their work desks. In fact, most desks were issued a clear ash tray when a new hire came on board. In the supply cabinet were usually a small stack of extra ash trays.

The meeting rooms all had big ash trays. Men carried lighters, as did women. Though, the small pack of lighters were still commonly available everywhere. Typically they would have the name and phone number of the establishment where they came from.

Some (typically Sales and Marketing types) would smoke cigars that would pollute the entire office. There was no such things as “designated smoking areas”.  That was a creation of the Clinton administration to make work places safer (for the children), as well as to reduce the costs of insurance.

Thank you Mr. Clinton and your close buddies in the insurance agency.

How the children, who were too young to work, be affected by secondhand office-smoke is beyond me. But you know, there is no logic in politics. It is just nonsense spewed out to control the masses through fear and confusion.

Indeed, a typical work desk at that time would have a dial or push button phone, a little tiny calendar (given away by insurance agencies and the like), a large page-by-page day planner that you could write your appointments on, an ash tray (for your cigarettes or cigars), a desk lamp with an adjustable neck (to improve upon the piss-poor fluorescent ceiling lighting), and a large desk mat.

Men who were “white collar” and who worked in the office typically wore business jackets.  We would arrive and take off our hat and coat and sit at our desk wearing our white shirt (long or short sleeve) and tie.
This all started to change in the middle of the 1980’s and I pretty much welcomed the change to a more relaxed and informal working environment. Though, I did lament the loss of my coat rack.

However, with the relaxation of work dress standards came a tightening of work place behaviors.

During the Bill Clinton presidency, we watched the erosion of office worker respect.  Culminating in cubicle work “farms” and impersonal bosses driven by Harvard MBA types.  Watch the movie “Office Space” to see what I am referring to here.
It is not a coincidence that the Dilbert cartoon became so popular during this time.

People flew flags on their porches during the fourth of July and did not worry about some social justice warrior or black lives matter radical burning their house down.
Additionally, the “American Stars and Bars” (Confederate flag), “Don’t tread on me”, State flags, and MIA (Vietnam missing in action) flags could be flown as well.

In my ENTIRE life, I have NEVER seen a “rainbow”, Antifa, or BLM flag flown on someone’s porch.

I guess, I need to be in “Lala land” (Hollywood) or Wall Street and mingle with the face of the oligarchy (Hillary Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, and George Soros) to experience that reality.

The movies of that time were actually (in my mind) pretty awesome. “Sixteen Candles” was pretty typical for the time. I preferred comedies as they were “up beat” and positive with a nice happy ending.

You go to a movie, and watch it.

Then afterwards, you go out for a “stuffed pizza” and a pitcher of beer. At the time, I was terribly fond of olive, mushroom and pork thick crust pizza.  Afterwards we would go and get a butterscotch milkshake on the way home.  We were regulars at movie theaters.  They were pretty cheap back then. Two people could go out and watch a movie and have a large pizza and a pitcher of beer for under $10.  Movies that we saw in the theater included “Better off Dead”, “Hot Dog the movie”, “Lost Boys” and “One Crazy Summer”.

Even McDonalds had tiny little disposable aluminum cigarette trays.  Republicans used the color blue, and Democrats used the color red.

Reading the morning newspaper was a popular pastime and every weekend restaurants would share multiple copies of the Sunday editions of the paper to various patrons to read.  Five dollars would fill your gas tank and it would last (almost) all week.  Drive-ins were still very popular, and malls were everywhere.  A price for two to watch a movie was under $5 on a Friday night.  Yes.  It was, a very… very different time indeed.

Yes.  I too miss the ability to practice “free speech” and the Bill of Rights. I guess ol’ Bush and Obama pretty much ended all of that.  (Sigh.)

Yes, the Progressive Democrat Liberals have pretty much fucked the nation all up.  (Don’t go PC on me.  They did actually FUCK it all up.) It’s not just me saying this from the point of view of an American, but from the point of view from someone in MAJestic.

Jesus-H-Christ. If you the reader are offended, then put this fucking manuscript down and walk away. The Democrats fucking strip-mined American culture. They made debauchery and looting of Americans a national pastime. (Not just Democrats, of course.
There are many socialist-inspired politicians who became RINO Republicans so that they could have a comfortable life through lying and cheating their constituents.)

How in the heck can someone become a billionaire without hurting another in some way?

It’s not just Democrats, but many Republicans as well. So I will repeat the question. How, in a reality balanced upon individual thoughts that manifest into actions, can a person become a billionaire without negatively affecting others? How is it possible? How?

Ponder that profound statement for a second.

If they weren’t so busy trying to manipulate others, alter the lifestyle and time progression of others, fixated on carnal desires of sex, sloth, and the greed of money how could they possible accumulate wealth? The accumulation of wealth is not a given.
It is NOT an event that manifests for a handful of “lucky” people who happen to be at the “right place at the right time”.

Those are simplistic childish ideas and concepts.  They are rooted in a belief that the physical is all that there is.
It is one man (or woman) for themselves, and if they are aggressive enough, and have the right opportunities, and some skill in manipulation, they can take from others. They can take.  They can take, and take, and take.

If there is one thing that the reader can get from <my words of wisdom> is that the universe does not work that way.  Yes, you can alter your reality by thought. Yes, you can acquire wealth, and comfort and desirable relationships. Yet, everything comes at a cost.  To acquire a large volume of “stuff” will have a corresponding large “cost” elsewhere. Other people will be affected.

This is not politics. Do not be so naive that a socialist model is heavenly derived. It isn’t. In fact, it is a manipulative trick used by the skillful to fleece the ignorant. There are no easy answers and pristine solutions.
Every decision, thought and action comes at a cost. Some people do not care what the costs are for their desires and their actions.  They only want the end results to manifest.

Indeed. Oh…my…The 1980’s were a time of expression and freedom. Those of us who lived through that time do remember what free speech was.

Ah “free speech”.  Don’t take it from me alone. Here’s some opinions from Reddit “What do you miss about the 1980s” we have these jewels…

MTV actually played music videos.

It wasn’t political, and staffed with urban ghetto blacks. The same was true with the NFL.  They played football, and the networks didn’t run (what can best be described as) a negro version of a KKK rally during every single friggin’ game.

We had endured the horrific 1970’s where President Nixon (R) acted as a King.  We were very jaded by the resultant investigation of the wiretapping of phones.
Oh, how silly that looks today with 24-7 mass surveillance now, and the behavior of Eric Holder (DOJ) and Hillary Clinton.  We saw what happens when a good-honest man; President Carter (D) (who was ineffectual as a president) becomes president.

We, like the rest of the nation, were ready for a real change, and we got it.  We lived during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (R). There will be many who have their own ideas about this time.  But I will tell it through the eyes that lived through that time.
Say what you will about “Ronald Ray-Gun” and the 1980’s, but the truth was that for me, it was a time of hope, and of adventure.

Everyone was optimistic. But you will not see that in any revisionist history books.

Ah, the rewriting of the past. Here’s El Rushbo on the rewriting of that decade by President Obama and his minions.

The Iranians released the American embassy hostages, a large American “freedom” space station was going to be built.  Americans were returning to the Moon and then Mars!  (Plans later killed by President Obama (D). President Obama said that going to the Moon wasn’t worth it.  We were there already.  So we will go to Mars instead, he said.  Then he killed Mars exploration because it was too expensive, he said.
Then he goes around and gives $7 billion dollars to South Africa and $150 billion dollars to Iran. WTF? What world-line am I on?  Jesus… maybe it’s time to get off.)

Russia was tearing down the wall in Germany.  Companies began hiring again, and everyone was hiring everywhere.  MDMA was discovered, and the youth of the country learned to emote to each other.
LSD was still being used, and everyone was questioning the roles that society fostered upon them.

Madonna had released her first of many albums, and she wasn’t such an aggressive asshole.   Pastels were popular and everyone was dancing to Wang Chung.

Michael Jackson was only a singer, and yet had to “Beat It”.

It was a magical time, a heady time of life and adventure.  As a result, we experienced both the good and bad that life had to offer us.

Everyone lives in fear.  Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, has warned us along the way to watch out for crazy people and to be weary of strangers, but I’ve found that to be largely unnecessary.

They were just warning us out of their own fears of the unknown.

Most of the people who threatened us were well-established, locals who saw us as a threat to their calm and stable way of life.
While we did meet some very dangerous people on the road, we were (typically) able to avoid them because, I think, we were just far too innocent and their hearts weren’t so cold as to corrupt the good that shined through our hearts.

Of course, we did meet some crazy and even evil people.  That is what happens when you step outside the walls of your safe enclave.  However, we were too kind, and too nice for anyone to really do anything bad to us.  But there were some close calls.
Truthfully, we found an equal proportion of bad people scattered about the population.

Some were obvious, and behaved stereotypically bad.  While others looked like the pinnacle of respectability; and held important positions in the church, society and government.  Yet, they were evil incarnate.

Yes, and we did meet some very bad people on the road.  There were times when we could have been hurt dangerously, but we did not permit that to happen.  When a person ventures out, it is natural to experience both the good and the bad in people.

Yes, we had SOME bad experiences.  You experience life when you travel; both the good and the bad.  But, most of our experiences were positive.

The vast, VAST, majorities of people in this country are good and were willing to help out however they could.
Whether it’s by buying a meal or by letting you sleep in their house or at their business, people are more than willing to accommodate you in any way they can when they see you struggling. I figured this would be the case, but the extent is surprising to me, nonetheless.
Americans are good people.  Most have kind hearts.  They are kind and understanding for the most part.

The only times that I’ve seen someone who wanted to help me out but couldn’t are when an individual has to abide by a chain of command. This includes almost all government services, and hierarchical organizations.

Sometimes it was a social service agency, that wouldn’t accept people without children, at other times it was a Church that wouldn’t help us (though, the woman behind the desk gave us $40 out of her own wallet).
It was a lady at a gas station who wanted to let us sleep out behind their business but the company wouldn’t allow it. Or, a stranger who put an envelope on our front window contained $40 with the words ‘God bless you’.
These people were the angels that held our hands along the way.  These people did so in secret and told no one what they did.  These are the “real” Christians who tried to make a good and positive difference in our lives, even though they knew nothing at all about us.

In short, people who are free to help, will. While those who are forbidden from helping still wish they could but are unable to.

You know what?

We learned a lot about life. And, instead of comparing yourself to others, you need to stop. Just stop thinking about other people and what they think about you. You need to think about you, and the individual path that YOU are on.
You, and everyone else in the world, needs to stop judging themselves by the standards set by media, government, religion, social groups, and instead think of only judging ourselves.

Stop judging others.

Everyone has their own lives.  What we see is the shadows of their existence as it pertains to our reality.  So we need not get too worked up about how they live their lives.

How other people live their lives are not our business.

Though it is if it directly affects us. Indeed, there are many kinds of people on this planet, and many ways to live your life. Other people live other lives. Some have harsher lives, and some have easier lives.
Some have terrible lives, but they look like their lives are easy and nice.  Others have what appear to be absolutely horrid lives, and yet they are fine and happy.  You cannot make a comparison at all.

A person, and their true situation, is NEVER obvious to the public.

Everyone on this planet is living a complex life that has invisible chains and entanglements far in excess than what we alone can bear.

It might look like they are doing well.  It might appear that they have a nice job, and a new car, and a beautiful wife.  It might appear that they are very successful.  But the amount of money that a person has is not a measure of success.
The appearance that a person has, or the clothes they wear are also not a sign of success.  They are only characteristics that provide the illusion of success.

Don’t judge them because they look rich.  Don’t judge them because they seem poor.  Don’t judge them because they seem promiscuous, or engage in vices.  It’s no one’s business but theirs.

We must start to live our own lives.  Not vicariously through the lives of others.

You’ve got to accept yourself; who you are and what you are.

It does not matter what has happened in your past.  You are not what you have done or experienced.  You are not what is valued by the employer who hired you.  Your value is not your job. Your value is determined by only one person, and that is yourself.
You have to accept it, with all the good and bad that exist inside you.

You’ve got wake up at five in the morning, brew some deep black coffee, and listen to the birds singing their sweet song in the glowing darkness of the new dawn.
You’ve got to sit next to the cute girl at the train station who’s reading your favorite book and start a conversation with her.

You’ve got to go to that local attraction that you’ve been meaning to visit but never got the chance to see.  You’ve got to start doing things, and stop thinking about them.  You’ve got to come home after a bad day and burn your skin from a shower until it is lobster red.
Then cool down with a quick cool blast.  Then you’ve got to wash all your sheets until they smell of lemon detergent you bought for four dollars at the local grocery store.  You’ve got to play with the local dogs and cats in the neighborhood and give them a treat or two.

You’ve got to live life.

Make it a point to better the world around you.  Smile more.  Complement people more.  Praise people, and complement a stranger that you like their hair or dress.  Be helpful.  Be nice.  Be kind.  You have this physical life to live; live it well.

Live your life well.

You, yes you, have got to stop taking everything so goddam personally. You are not the moon kissing the black-black sky.  You are not some “lone wolf” who is without a pack to travel with.  We are all interconnected.  We all need each other.

You’ve got to compliment someone.  You’ve got to help the old lady with her laundry at the laundry-mat.  You have to talk to people at art fairs and tell them that their eyes remind you of green swimming pools in mid-July.

Am I making my point?

You have got to complement someone.  Tell the girl that she looks good in that dress, whether she does or not.  You have to tell that person who has a smile that their smile just made your day.  You’ve got to help others; praise others; and do something with your life.

You’ve got to stop letting yourself get upset about things that won’t matter in two years.

You’ve got to sleep in on Saturday mornings and wake yourself up early on Sunday. You’ve got to stop worrying about what you’re going to tell her when she finds out. You’ve got to stop over thinking why he stopped caring about you over six months ago.
You’ve got to stop asking everyone for their opinions.  You have to stop trying to control things…

You have got to be you.  Be the best you that you can be, and forget what everyone else thinks.

You’ve got to love yourself.  You have to live your destiny.  You have to do what you need to do, and not what other people thing you ought to do.  You must follow your heart and live life like it was the most precious thing in the world.
You must enjoy life, embrace life, grab life with both hands and gulp the golden nectar down your throat in sloppy splashes of foam.  Then wipe your face off with both hands and smile a big toothy smile.

Anything less is a disservice.

When I grew up there wasn’t any kind of social media.  None.  There was no Facebook, QQ, Snapchat, or anything like that.  There were no “mobile applications” because there were no mobile phones.
Our entertainment was limited to friends, movies, outdoor activities, and television.  No one had a cell phone, a PDA, or laptop.
Software games were simplistic pixilated arcade machines that resided in movie theater lobbies or game rooms.  For fun, if we were alone; we watched television.  If we were with friends, we would participate in some kind of outdoor activity.

However, all of this has since changed.

Since the late 1990’s social media has hit America with a great ferocity.
This is fine, and has it’s benefits, but one of the draw backs is that a person who has always lived in a world where social media dominates the culture cannot understand what it was like before social media existed.
For them, it is very difficult to understand why people acted and behaved as we all did in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

When I was in my 20’s we did something that was known as “hanging out”.  Rather than stay inside the house and watch television, or go to a bar, we would just go “hang out”.  This may or may not have included drinking.  It may or may not included drug use.
It may or may not included doing a sport or outside activity.  It basically involved being with friends together.

Examples of this (seemingly or not) boring activity can be seen in the movie “Dazed and Confused”, or in the music video “First Kiss” by Kid Rock.  Much of that time was involved in cruising the streets in a car of pickup. Often we were in some sort of inebriated state.

Truthfully, the best movie ever made regarding what it was like in my high school, during my Senior year was the movie “Dazed and Confused”.
While it took place in the upper great lakes region, I can affirm that it adequately and truthfully represented what my final year in high school was like in Western Pennsylvania.  We kids…well, we all “hung out”.

Sadly, I really don’t see that happening any more.

Instead, I see people glued to their smart phone, and playing games… even when they walk!  I can go to a restaurant, and the entire table is playing on their phones and no one is talking.  What the hell is going on?

Heck, back in those days (before I got married) and well before I entered the US Navy, life was all about hanging out, being with friends, and “chillin’”.
Some of the iconic scenes in the movie were so atypical that a failure to reproduce them here would be a great disservice to the reader.

Ah…

But I digress. Social structure back in my generation was quite different than what it is today.  We had friends and spent time with them.
Instead of going out to Starbucks any paying $10 for a caramel latte, and then sit down and use the WiFi to check our Facebook account, we would do something quite different.
Indeed, we would spend the $10 on a keg of beer, or maybe two, and a shit load of “munchies” (food) and enough gas to drive to California and back.  (Yeah. Prices were much cheaper then.)

Social reengineering did not occur with the ferocity that you see today.  No one talked about “Niggers” or “White Privilege”.  We just didn’t.  At least not in my circles, we didn’t.

Most of that racist bullshit that you read in the media is just made up bullshit.

Instead we talked about television shows, movies, and what we liked or didn’t like about them. We would discuss Charles Bronson (He grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania which was only a half an hour drive from my High School house. ) getting “justice”.
We would talk about Clint Eastwood and his many male-themed movies.

We also didn’t have so much taken out of our paychecks as you kids do today. We had money to spend, and time to enjoy life. We did not need to live in our parent’s basement, and live off them. We worked, even at minimum wage, and could afford our own place and our own car. My generation worked.  We earned our place in society.
We paid for our house by saving up for it.  We paid for our car by saving up for it. When we were not working, we relaxed.

So what did we do?  Why, we “hung out” and “chilled”.

I ask the reader; how about testing your knowledge regarding the time period that I am referring to.  Do you know how to develop the film that you took with a 35mm camera?

Have you ever been to a “roller rink”, a “drive-in”, a stainless-steel “diner”,  or visited an automat, watched the “evening night news” (this was before the 24-7 all-news networks)?  Do you remember a twenty-five cent cup of coffee?
Or, don’t you care, as nothing is better than smashing your piggy bank to buy a cup of Starbucks commercialized beverage?

Oh, and by the way…

Please keep that in mind.

Indeed, life has changed, and the differences are both subtle and clamorous. This is important for the reader to understand.  When I was involved in the MAJestic program, there wasn’t much of an Internet presence.
If you wanted to learn about extraterrestrials or conspiracies, you read the local newspaper, went to the local library, or watched television.

While most people had heard of ET, and UFO’s, their exposure to them was much more difficult to experience.  Today, with social media and google-style search engines it is effortless.
But, when I was involved in the program, very few people took the kind of activities that I was involved in seriously.  For them, the United States would have never been involved in that kind of activity.

We believed in the United States government because we were uninformed, gullible, and saw no need not to.  In those days, it was still possible to become a middle class statistic without obtaining a college education.  (Indeed the most ridiculous concept in the old 1960’s cartoon “The Jetsons” was the concept that a factory worker could support a middle class lifestyle for a family of four.)

What was it like?  It was like THIS.

Work was everywhere, and the amount of government intrusion in one’s lives was minuscule compared to what is present today.  We believed that the United States was good, righteous and just.  (Even after the “Watergate” fiasco.)

We believed that the media would report the truth.  (Bwahhhh ha ha ha ha ha…)

We believed that those we voted into office would represent us.  (Gosh,…I am now lying on the ground, rolling, and laughing my ass off!!!)

We believed that our tax monies went to “just” purposes.  (Oh, stop…stop! This is just too rich!)

That was what we believed! As strange and as unlikely as it might sound today.

We were very simplistic.

In every study of events prior to, say the year 2000, one must take into account that communication, activities and behaviors were fundamentally different than they are today.  That difference should be recognized and applauded.
Because (as the reader should be well aware by now) we are all connected in a quantum sense.  Group thought, amplified by social media, directs our behaviors whether we want to recognize it or not.

That being stated, I enjoy social media as much as the next guy.  Tumblr, QQ, WeiXin and Pinterest are my favorites, while fffound comes in a close number three. (Update fffound shut down a few years ago.)

I personally love Tumblr, as the quality of the pictures that you can find is outstanding.  It is also a great site to find porn.

The problem with this is that you don’t want to see porn all the time, 24-7.

Yet, if you find a porn blog on Tumblr that you like, you will bookmark it and get on it’s feed.  As a result it will “pollute” your normal and regular feed.
You will be like other Tumblr users, who when using their computer in public or at work would whisper under their breath “Please don’t be porn.  Please don’t be porn.” when checking their Tumblr feed. LOL.

You see, Americans have to pretend that they don’t like porn. We have to pretend that we are disgusted by looking at nude people. Yet the opposite is true. All men enjoy porn. At least soft-porn. Hard core stuff can get too ugly.
And, that is the way it is, and no quasi-religious or SJW revisionist is going to erase that fact. Go explore the rest of the world. The rest of the world doesn’t really care. They DON’T CARE.

Anyways…

Americans have to be careful on how they express themselves on social media. The FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies are investing in and relying on corporate surveillance technologies.
These technologies can mine constitutionally-protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

It is done (supposedly) in order to identify potential extremists and to predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior.

For instance, a decorated Marine, 26-year-old Brandon Raub was targeted by the Secret Service because of his Facebook posts.

As such, he was [1] interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, [2] arrested with no warning, [3] labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called “conspiratorial” views about the government, [4] detained against his will in a psych ward for having “dangerous” opinions, and [5] isolated from his family, friends and attorneys.

OK, I am going to get off in a tangent.  (What is this, the sixth tangent off this post? Jeeze!) Sorry folks, but this is important.

OK. The fact is this. If you are an American, you get a pitiful amount of vacation time. While “officially” most Americans are entitled to a minimum of two weeks vacations at “most” companies, it only applies to full-time employees who have worked at least five years.

However, most Americans typically don’t work at a company for more than five years.  In fact, for all the positions that I held as a “white collar” engineer and manager, I typically was only given one-week vacation.

In addition, often WHEN I was permitted to take this was mandated during either the Christmas holiday or during the mid-summer plant shutdown. Here’s some great articles and quotes on this…

And even that amount of vacation often comes with strings attached.

Some U.S. companies don’t like employees taking off more than one week at a time. Others expect them to be on call or check their e-mail even when they’re lounging on the beach or taking a hike in the mountains.

Here’s a great write up by Ashley Fern titled “The 8 Reasons You Hate Your Job In Corporate America”. I think it says it all far better than I ever could.

Thank you Ashley Fern.

This is all pretty much well known to those of us who had to sit in those grey boxes and stare at computer screens all day long. We did this with absolute dictatorial watching of office hours and battles over the scant vacation and leave time.

Couple that with the ever present risk of losing your job and you end up with a very, very stressful situation.

This was quite prevalent in the white-collar world during the time when I was employed.  We lived the life shown in the movie “Office Space”. It was our reality. Welcome to the life that I lived (in the physical).

There was always some kind of “workplace improvement program” going on. It might be [1] a mandatory blood collection effort (it was, of course they couldn’t say that it was mandatory, that would be against the law… but it was.

We all “knew” the consequences if we did not follow what was asked of us.

The government would make regulations to “protect” workers, and companies would either find ways around them, or simply ignore them.).

Consider my experience with [2] a mandatory weekend cleaning of the offices.  (The company fired the janitorial staff, and so we all had to come in over the weekend to clean up.)

Alternatively, it might be [3] two trashcans that we would use to separate our trash into.  (An on-going “green” effort that the company was promoting.) One for recyclables, and the other for non-recyclables.
There were fines and punitive measures placed on us if we did not sort through our trash.