44 degrees in heavy rain in Newtown PA. Lovely morning to go look at travel trailers...not.
Drinking some good hotel coffee and waiting until 9am to venture out. I have all day, no sense getting into rush hour traffic in a rainstorm.
This area is hugely congested, overbuilt, too many Audis and every other possible foreign car. It's just such a weird change from an environment where almost everyone drives an American truck. And so many BMW's, they are like Chevy Malibus around here. And few of their drivers use their turn signals and are usually drinking a latte while never stopping on a right turn at stop sign. They don't have to. They are privileged I guess...
Now remember I grew up here, and I have witnessed the total repurposing of this area from farmland like I grew up on to nothing but McMansions littering prior corn fields. They are everywhere. Lot of the folks near here died in 9-11; the investment company folk on the top floor lived a few miles from where I am right now.
Finally the local governments got smart, realized it was much cheaper to buy the preservation rights of the farms versus paying huge amounts of money to build state of the art school systems to support all the new kids. High school teachers in this area often make six figures.
All this wealth is a great part of the American Dream but frankly it makes me a bit ill.
Big house, fancy car, private schools only for the kids. Even though the public schools are outstanding.
Despite my love of mechanical things and anything with a motor and wheels, and for sure tools..., I've never been materialistic in the way I am observing so many people here in Bucks County. I bet more cars are bought here for how they make the owner look than how they drive.
I saw this to the true extreme when living aboard my boat in Aventura Florida, about halfway between Miami and Ft Lauderdale. One Palm Beach resident did a "watch this" to me while pressing a small remote control and all three garage doors went up to show the grills of three Rolls Royces all lined up perfectly so the sun would glint spectacularly off their chromework. Good Lord. Where are our values?
Reminds me why my father always wanted to get home and get into the garden, into the dirt.
Back to the real stuff. Back to the land.
Almost all the very wealthy folks I met in South Florida were unhappy. Their wealth wasn't enough.
They hadn't figured it out yet.
And I'm sure not one of them had ever driven a tractor.
For sure they haven't figured it out yet...
sorry this is so long