Zach works in the emergency room of a local hospital as a RN. In a chance meeting in a Waffle House in northern Kentucky, after finishing a night shift, we drifted into a conversation where he was asking, "Why are there people admitted to the hospital who are not taking care of themselves, don't work, expect the emergency room to solve their problems, believe the government should take care of them forever, and they don't have to pay for anything?"
He wondered how long can our social system handle this kind of burden? (A not fully busy waitress leaned in and joined the conversation now and then.)
Zach expressed dissatisfaction with the entire health care system. He wants to serve in situations of need, not abuse and greed.

The prison situation in the USA passed by on the menu of discussion. How can the United States have the highest incarceration rate in the world? How long can this financial burden be maintained on the working population?

Zach is questioning the real problems of today, not the passing news feeds about temperature, sports, stock market ticker numbers, and local automobile crashes. 

Hats off to Zack and many other citizens who are seeing through the media fog to the real issues that need to be addressed.

Gas station after road side rest after safety pullouts after restaurants, the beat goes on when you are traveling a long distance by road. Sun Oil Co of old, now SUNOCO, was one of the many stations I stopped at for food, gasoline, and bathroom break. 
I asked Sue, the checkout person at the register, if the bathrooms were locked and did I need a key. She said the bathroom located on the outside of the station was open, it was too much trouble for her and the customer to lock them: keys were broken, misplaced, and it worked best if it was simply open for customers to use. One finds this unlocked situation often if the bathrooms are on the inside of the quick marts that are prevalent among gasoline stations, but unlocked bathrooms on the outside of facilities are seldom found.

Wow, was I shocked! It was the cleanest bathroom I had possibly ever used in a traveling situation, rivaling home cleanliness. It was simply amazing.

"Sue, who is the person who keeps that bathroom so clean?", I asked. 
"I do. You know, I keep it the way I would like to find a bathroom it if I were to need one."
Hats off to Sue whose attitude made my day.

Sometimes we get sidetracked into seeing the problems of life, the many absurdities that surround us, and may even despair that nothing good is happening. Where did all the good people go? I'd like to share a trick learned from the bicycle and motorcycle world.

When you are riding a bicycle and you don't want to run into something in your path, the solution is NOT to focus on it. Look to the left or right of the object, but not AT it. In life we don't ignore the fact of dark areas around us, the trick is not to focus on them. If we kep our eyes on the beam of light, the destination, the optimistic view, then the undesirable aspects around us simply dissolve out of focus.

The blogs on this page are to respect and highlight some wonderful people with whom I've had the unique experience of seeing their beauty, dedication, and insights that they may have shared along the journey. The people are real, their identity has been protected.

 Enjoy some wonderful, fellow passengers along our journey.