The first step...

I've never thought of myself as a particularly good writer nor terribly good at English. In fact, I will often refer to English as my second language even though I speak no other. This may have more to do with my ability to get into trouble easily while speaking and may be caused by my upbringing as the middle child with four female siblings, but more on this another time.

I think the important thing to do today is introduce myself as the voice of reason. Honestly, I am not particularly comfortable with this moniker because it sounds a bit boastful, but I do think my view may be different from the normal ranting extremists and I do think I come from a place that may qualify me as a bit more open minded than those on the far left and right.

You see, I grew up in a lower middle class home. My father worked in the Post Office for 27 years and my mother occasionally worked as administrative help in banks and small businesses. The work ethic was strong in our home and I picked up my first job selling vegetables through the neighborhood that my father grew in a large garden in our field. I was 8 years old. By the age of 10, I had already been delivering newspapers for nearly a year and by the age of 12, I was carrying golf bags at local country clubs. In high school, I worked after school (evenings and weekends) at the local mall for Gimbels and paid my parents rent to live at home. I attended college (paid for myself) and when I graduated in 1982, I returned to my home town where there was no work (anyone remember the early 1980s recession?). At one point, I lived on the street for a few months (a very humbling and eye opening experience). No, I had no parental home to return to since it had burned down while I was in college, but I digress. I finally was able to secure enough part time work to pay for a room in a rooming house and from there I slowly and steadily increased my income to the point where I started my own business. The business ran successfully for nearly 20 years before I made the change to work for a local school.

So here I am. I lived in a lower middle class home where we always ate well and had a roof over our heads. I lived on the street and struggled to keep moving in a positive direction. I built a business that allowed me to afford a middle class life, get married, buy a home and have a son.

Politically, I consider myself a fiscal conservative and a social progressive. I guess that makes sense since living on the street and building a business only on the effort of my own capitol building makes a person very fiscally conservative. In addition, having lived both on the street and in a comfortable home makes a person open to all manner of lifestyles, hence my socially progressive views. I think many folks think is a similar manner. So this is why I have named my blog, The Voice Of Reason. Sadly, folks like me believe the old concept of "Live and let live". and as such are not particularly vocal in our beliefs. I guess this is what you would expect of reasonable folks.

Maybe I can help speak for those folks who are tired of the extremes driving the press. Maybe I can help speak for those folks who are sick of the corporations spreading propaganda so that we will continue to by their products even when those products poison governments, people and the environment. Maybe I can just be another voice of reason. Maybe...