Just two weeks ago, I received a telephone call from an old friend who lives in Mechanicsville, Virginia. It had been a long time since we last spoke and I was glad to hear from him. The news he had to share with me was not good.
The last time we spoke, he had been renting a small town home just outside Richmond. He was working for a privately owned custom upholsterer. They worked for high-end private and corporate clientele, which would always be at the direction of a planner or architect. The news was that business had dropped off so badly that the little shop (which is owned by a Vietnam Veteran and had been opened by this veteran in 1977) was going to close down from that site and planned to join forces with another shop across town, which also has reduced its workforce as a result of increased taxes and regulations.
The news got worse as I learned from my friend that his paychecks had naturally fallen off, forcing him to burn up his small savings just to stay afloat. More recently, he told me he had to give up his town home. He now sleeps in the shop at night. He doesn’t tell his boss. He is homeless but is still working to some extent. With the shop now closing, however, he must make alternative arrangements.
He had foreseen the advance of Communism in America and had been letting go of all his worldly possessions these past four years, allowing him to move quickly and freely (not unlike a refugee) should circumstances dictate such action. All the while, he was hoping the people of the United States and especially his home state of Virginia would come to their senses and stop this madness. He hoped the Supreme Court would stand up to the Communist advances on our liberty and strike down Obamacare and take on cases that would shut down the rogue US agencies which are hell-bent on destroying us with their usurpation of Constitutional powers and advancing the United Nations Agenda 21. He hoped the Republican Party would have kept their word and stopped it all as they had promised in 2010. He hoped the Republicans would not let the Democrats get away with destroying our nation and his state. He wanted his local, state and federal elected officials to do what he and all of his neighbors and fellow business owners elected them to do. Sadly, he now has to pick up and leave because the political parties and their cronies didn’t listen and steer clear from the path of Communism.
On my approach to this little town which lays just inside the Richmond beltway, my first impression of the area is that the buildings looked almost abandoned. All but one appeared this way and that was a convenience store across the street from that shop. I made a wrong turn and I had to go into the store’s parking lot to get back on the road. I could barely get my old truck through the lot. It was jammed with lunchtime crowds.
I made it over to the back of the shop and knocked on the door. My friend came right out and I demanded he let me buy him lunch. I wanted to eat just a few doors down at the Pizza and Sub Sandwich shop I passed on the way in to town. He agreed and we managed to get in the door at 12:30.
I was afraid it would be crowded and it might delay my trip back. When we walked through the parking lot, it couldn’t have been more empty and opposite in appearance from the convenience store across the street. There wasn’t a soul in the place at 12:30PM.
We ordered a pizza and sat at a counter that occupied the front of the pizza parlor. That gave us a view of the street and the businesses across from us. He pointed out how the appliance store across the street was only open a few hours a day now. There was another business in the back of the store, which is leasing space, and helps pay the rent on the entire property but business is slow there now as well.
Then he pointed out the used car lot across the street that was hit hard by “Cash for Clunkers” as it dried up the supply of used cars in the market. He said they have never fully recovered from that. They have a hard time selling what stock they have since people are short on cash.
Then he told me about the auto repair shop between his place and the restaurant we were sitting in. The owner lets him come over in the evenings, as he’s getting ready to close up so he can watch the television and enjoy the waiting room lounge chairs. At that time of day, the customers come in to pick up their cars. He said more and more people ask the owner now if they can make payments on the repairs. The owner so far is generous enough but he has already had to let go one employee because of Obamacare. More layoffs may be coming soon.
I told him that reminded me of the kind of generosity this country saw in the first Great Depression. It is the same type of generosity that caused people to lose everything back in the first Great Depression. We could not believe the Republicans allowed this crazy collective scheme of the Democrats to come to life and bring on the second depression.
I asked my friend about why the convenience store had so much business if times were so bad. He told me he goes over there as well now. He tells me half the crowds of people are using SNAP cards to get free food. Then he shocked me when he said the same people would pull a few dollars out of their pockets and spend every last one of them on lottery tickets.
My friend found great generosity in the store personnel after hours and stands in a smaller line out behind the store on some nights when they’re about to throw out the expired food. He says it doesn’t bother him that much but it hurts him to see young couples standing in line. They look lost but are still hanging on to the thought the world will gain its sense and let go of collectivism. Stop lying to everybody and let go of their hard-earned incomes.
My friend feels lucky because he has a roof over his head he says. He says sleeping on one of the cutting tables is not so bad. He could be sleeping in his car or worse. He uses the facilities there to clean up every day, so he has that going for him. However, I could not believe what I was seeing in a suburb of Richmond, Virginia.
One thing I did note was that all of the people I saw in the town of Mechanicsville had a grey hue to their faces. It didn’t matter what race of person I saw, they all looked grey and there were no pregnant women or mothers with their babies anywhere to be seen. There were no positive signs of life.
By now, I was feeling a little chill in the bones and a radio station was reporting that the governor of Virginia was begging and pleading with Obama not to use sequestration on Virginia. Oddly, the story that followed it was about the General Assembly and the overnor in particular, justifying raising taxes on Virginians. It is a shame the governor didn’t fight Obamacare and tax hikes with the same zeal in which begged Obama for mercy. He might have stopped the killing of babies on taxpayer’s money and the spiraling economic destruction on all of us. Instead, he felt he needed to raise the taxes.
It is true the Democrats engineered this second great depression with their Alinsky tactics but we’ve known of this plan for decades now. This is their amplified plan from the Clinton presidency, which was an amplified version of the Carter era disasters. The Republicans are guilty of letting it happen. We told them. “We the people” of all creeds and colors told the GOP to stop it. We told them at rallies and town hall meetings. Some still call us names and threaten to join with the Democrats to splinter down our Second Amendment right as punishment for standing up against big government.
The destruction of careers in not a forgivable offense. Both parties have destroyed careers, families, dreams and inventions. Much of the hope has been dashed. All of the people have stopped being people and are now just trying not to starve and freeze to death from the failure of “social justice”.
I gave my friend all the money I could afford to give him for the Singer. It was his last possession and he can’t haul it around with him. He hoped to utilize it while he was working there but he didn’t need it since business never picked up.
We loaded the Singer up on the back of my truck, and I gave him my best wishes. I drove home with a grim thought in my mind about what I had just seen. However, I knew instantly that there is no possible way the governor of that state could have ever driven through that town or up Route 2 past the closed GM plant in Fredericksburg or the closed cardboard box factory in Franklin, or farther down the southwest hills toward Radford. No, these politicians cannot possibly live amongst us.
The Singer is home with me now and is waiting for me to make use of it. I wonder when I’m going to have to call somebody someday to save the Singer. If the people don’t wake up now and stomp out this communist—sustainable–green rule by decree slow massacre of this nation, it won’t be long.