What Freedom?

I wrote this back in 2009 but it is relevant for today.

What freedom ?
Have you ever thought about what freedom really is to you? It's been on my Mind a lot lately since Obama became our president. I thought it was pretty cool to have a black president, and I expected to see him fulfill his promises, and lead us on to greater prosperity and more freedoms. Although I did not vote for him, I did want to see a change for a better America.
Instead our constitution is being torn apart and our freedom taken away. People are becoming so angry and hateful with little conscious or remorse for their actions. I love America and the values it was founded upon, and I love my freedoms. I don't want to loose my ability to choose how I live.
My freedom is the right to pray to God every day
My freedom is the right to have coffee in the morning.
My freedom is the right to have my own health care insurance.
My freedom is the right to become an entrepreneur.
My freedom is my life, and I love my life.
If only we could focus more on the people who are breaking the laws and taking advantage of the loop holes and unregulated and unenforced programs. We would be able to start correcting many of the financial problems of our economy. I am not just talking about the big dogs in our government , but also the people like our neighbors on food stamps or some other assistance, who are abusing the programs. We could stop a lot of the waste and get back to taking responsibility for our own situations and correct a lot of the helpless and do nothing syndrome we seem to be suffering from.
It would be wise for us to look back to our founders and think about how our freedoms came about, and then look at now and see how many of them have been abused and even taken away.

I believe in our constitution and simply living life to the best of my ability, enjoying the freedoms given to me.
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON AMERICA
Earl Baldwin

Why I enjoy my perfect job

I had been looking for several months to find a partime retirement job, one where I could help people, and improve their living quarters. I had been doing property maintenance for several years and really enjoyed it.
While my wife was reading the paper one morning she circled a small add for a building maintenance caretaker and told me I should check this out.I got online and filled out an application and the next day I received a call asking me to come in for an interview right away. The interview went good and I was hired the following day.

Right away I was thinking this is the perfect job for me. I had the responsibilities of upkeep, maintenance, and repairs of two buildings. Both of the buildings were in pretty good condition, although very little maintenance had been done in the last few years. One building has 8 apartments and the other building has 24 apartments. Each of the buildings is occupied with people who have some sort of disability and are not able to do any repairs themselves.

Many of the people are confined to their wheel chair but are still very mobile and able to go wherever they want to. Also there are about 10 of the residents who travel around in power wheel chairs who I see on a daily basis. Two of these people out of many that I would like to mention are who makes my work days so special.

Eric and Kay have gradually become my inspiration for doing the best job possible.
Eric lives on the second floor and Kay lives on the first. They are good friends and visit each other often, they must go past the office each time they go out or check their mail, and I always leave the door open so any one can come in, but usually they just go by and always give me a greeting, like (Hi Earl or Morning Earl) or like Eric says "Earl's Snacking again". I have done several repairs in both of their apartments, and they are always so appreciative of how quickly the repair was made or taken care of. They both have a good outlook on life and usually seem happy with their environment. This makes coming to work a pleasure and I look forward to seeing them each day.

My office is located on the first floor just inside the main entrance,and the mail boxes are on the other side of my office. I have windows on three walls so I can sit in the office and see pretty much every thing that is going on. When I first started this job I was advised not to become personally involved in the residents lives, so I have pretty much stuck to greetings and uplifting comments. It has been no surprise that over the last year and a half most of the people have shared a lot of positive feed back, not only to me but to the corporate property managers. Granted there have been stressful times but for the most part this has been the perfect job and the reason I enjoy it so much. The people and variety of tasks I do each day is what Simply Living Life to the best of my ability is all about.

Fire in the engine

I was having flashbacks of the good old days when we would hop in the bug (Volkswagen beetle 1969)and go for a joy ride. Every time we would go out it was an adventure because that little bug could go anywhere and we could whip in and out of traffic easily. I have had a variety of beetles over the last 25 years, and have had great times in every one of them. So many memories, but one in particular always comes to mind first.
We had moved to one of the larger cities in the state and lived in a small apartment. My two sons were both pre-teen agers so we always had a lot of activity going on. Friday afternoon and I was home from work early, we had lunch and then wrestled around for a bit.
It was a beautiful fall day in Montana, and my two sons and I were getting ready for our afternoon cruse around town or maybe into the mountains. We threw our jackets in the bug and backed out of the driveway. ( I have to mention here that when I drove that bug it was full bore) There were no seat belt laws then and I don't think there were any seat belts in the cars, and the only speed limits we had were in the city limits.
Most of the time the boys would kneel on the back seat facing the rear window and hold onto the back of the seat, so they could see more of the action.I shifted into gear and pushed the peddle to the metal, and then second gear, then third gear, just then my sons said DAD there is fire coming out the back of the bug. I thought maybe the tail pipe was dragging and it was just sparking, so I slowed down and stopped the car. As I walked around the back I could see the engine was really on fire. I quickly opened the car door and grabbed my jacket. The boys jumped out and stood over by the sidewalk watching. I went back around and got down to reach under the car and smother the fire. God must of been watching because I was able to put it out in a few seconds with no injuries.
I checked around the engine and found that the fuel line had popped off and that is what started the fire. We had only gone about a block, so we pushed the bug back home.I looked around the garage for another piece of hose to put back on; with the new hose on we all got back in and took it out for a test run. Everything worked fine, so we drove around for a couple of hours and went back home. Another day of simply living life as it comes.