Life During Wartime Iraqi Freedom version

Life During Wartime - Iraqi Freedom version

Heard of a van, loaded with IEDs,
packed up and ready to go
Heard of some grave sites, out by the highway,
a place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance,
I'm getting used to it now
Born in Baytown, lived on the downside,
I've been all over this town

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain't got time for that now

Transmit the message, to the receiver,
hope for an answer from home
I got a sixteen, a couple of buddies,
you don't even know my fightin' name
Out in the desert, the trucks are loading,
everything's ready to roll
I sleep when I can, I work 30 hours at a time,
I might not ever get home

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
this ain't no fooling around
This ain't no fight club, or C. B. G. B.,
I ain't got time for that now
Heard from Houston? Heard from my hometown?
Heard from my homies in Dirty B?

You oughta know not to stand by the window
somebody might shoot you up there
I got a care package, some peanut butter,
to last a couple of days
But I ain't got no pictures, ain't got no
headphones, ain't got no CD's to play

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
I'd do it different next time
Can't write an email, can't send no postcard,
I can't write nothing at all
I'd like to kiss you, I'd love to hold you
I ain't got no time for that now...

The Talking Heads (with revisions by BB)
Dedicated to my son, Sgt. Nick Marshall US Army

Danny Glover Commie Lover

I watched with sizzling anger as that idiot Marxist Chavez blasted every American in this country and people actually thought he was talking only about the President.

Then on to the churches where, heckfire, I guess registered American voters were cheering a foreign dictator over our own President. They wouldn’t be allowed that ‘right’ in Hugo’s own country. Then Danny Glover gets up and lays credence to his remarks even calling him friend and brother…Oh brother, where art thou really? Mel should have let the bad guys have him about 4 movies ago.

What Danny needs is a reality check and a swift kick in the backside by someone with a dab of sense. Hugo is biting the very hand that feeds him, as the good old USA is his best customer. Chavez is offering cheap gas in NYC as a slap in the face of George Bush while 50% of his own country is unemployed and suffering a 15% inflation rate.

If only we Americans could wean ourselves from our addiction to gas guzzling cars and trucks, we could shut Hugo Chavez up like a Texas oyster, but alas…

I apologize to the liberals out ‘there’ in Electroland for not using extensive and exclusively copy and pasted material as my own opinion.

Quid Pro Quo

Is Islam inherently violent? Is it a religion that believes every other religion and dogma, which crosses its own, is heresy and should be annihilated from the face of the earth? Am I in danger of becoming a target for even questioning Islam? Am I an infidel and will killing me benefit, promote and fulfill Allah’s will?

Or is it actually a religion that is peaceful and only a small radical faction of believers is giving this wonderful revelation a black eye? Hold on a second and let me fill in a little history before I go further. Freely call me a bigot later if that pleases, but at least give me the benefit of the doubt. I want to exercise my American freedom of speech.

I am a dyed-in-the-wool American. I was born here and it is all I know. I was brought up with certain inalienable rights as a benefit of our Constitution, which just had a birthday, September 17. We Americans are guaranteed these human rights because we have men and women in our history who were willing to die on foreign soil. These ‘rights’ were paid for with blood and tears, millions of tears, millions.

I enjoy these very freedoms BECAUSE I am an American. I am also the grandson of two Army veterans, the son of a WWII veteran, I am a Vietnam veteran and the father of a 22-year-old man (he was a boy a couple of overseas tours ago, even before he completed his 60th mission in Iraq) who is currently a Sergeant in the U.S. Army.

My dearly missed father-in-law spent a couple of summers on Biak, a tiny island in the south Pacific enduring Japanese Zero’s bombs and bullets. Even with a bad back, he cut hair at Reno’s barbershop on old SH-146 for years and was so humble; folks called him Reno, because he didn’t want to bother them with pronouncing his real name…Willard Reneau.

The point I want to drive home right here in my hometown is so obvious to me, I can’t for the life of me see why it isn’t being screamed from the front lawn of the White House. We enjoy our freedom of religion because we are Americans. People come into this country legally or illegally and they demand American privileges and it burns my hide when I read it.

We do not owe them a dad-blame right or benefit other than protection while inside our borders.
Camp X-Ray soldiers gave prisoners copies of the Koran and prayer blankets and even little cloth hats so they could practice their religion, only to be accused of flushing a holy book down a toilet. Riots ensued. Danish cartoonists drew a picture of a man who lived 500 years ago and Muslim countries start burning buildings and calling for the heads (literally) of anyone involved. The Pope of Rome quotes a 14th century Byzantine Emperor and Iran let’s students out of school so they can demonstrate in the streets, calling for his head. Thailand has lost 1400 people to Islamic extremists in the last two years. The list of intolerance and violence is a mile long and growing daily.

I was sickened when I read today, the Catholic Pope who leads one billion followers did not stand up for what he said. Is the whole world afraid of a peaceful religion that does not tolerate criticism and turns violent to prove it?

I will believe this is a religion of peace when I see it. When American Muslims stand up and openly and passionately condemn the radical fundamentalist murders of women, children and innocent people, then I will begin to believe that Islam in America differs from what I see going on all over the world.

Quid Pro Quo (something for something) is all I’m asking. We Texans call it “putting your money where your mouth is”. If my neighbor wants to convert to a religion differing from my own, that is fine. That privilege is paid for, thank you Americans. If that same neighbor violates my peaceful existence practicing their religion and disturbs my way of life I’m calling the cops, it’s that simple.

The demands the leaders of Islam are putting on the world in the name of tolerance are the very facets they are violating.

September Eleven 2001

September 5th, 2001 found my wife and me standing on the south bank of the Hudson River staring alternately at Ellis Island and the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The Statue of Liberty which lies just south of Ellis Island is a breath taking sight and if you as an American have never made that long drive to New Jersey to lay eyes on it, do it.

My daughter had just graduated from Flight Attendant school in Houston for Continental Express and being barely 19, she was on the minimum end of the age requirement. She was assigned Newark, New Jersey as her first Hub location and my wife and I panicked because our baby girl was going it alone for the first time after graduation from R.E. Lee high school right here in Baytown.

My sweetheart and I loaded up her little Honda car and made the 1600 mile drive up there (that’s the way we Texans view everything north of…well, Texas). Our goal beside delivering the car and making sure our baby was okay, was to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The World Trade Center was just a curiosity, like the Empire State building, which is up river and clearly visible from where we stood. We could see Battery Park and the Brooklyn Bridge and the Staten Island Ferry also. It was ‘cool’.

Being an amateur photographer I stared at the sight of these giant towers across the river. Now fellow Baytownians, I do not exaggerate when I say these two towers were impressive in a big Texas way. They literally dwarfed everything around them and when you see pictures, it just does not impress upon you the sheer magnitude. They were so big, that across the river they looked like they were solid stone, not the view of thousands of windows that we saw on television.

I could have sat all day and watched the view. I took a couple of photos, like everyone else. I yawned. I bought a pretzel on Ellis Island. I found a few names on the list of immigrants that I thought I might be related to. We stood in line to go inside the Statue of Liberty, riding the ferry and enjoyed the views. We were like the Twin Towers; totally unaware of approaching disaster.

In my wildest dreams I never imagined my 17 year old son would be completing his 60th mission as a sergeant in the U.S. Army on the streets of Baghdad, Iraq five years later. “Have you shot your weapon, Son”? “Yes, Dad, I have”. “More than once, Son”? “Yes, Dad, more than once”.

My father’s brother, Captain Harry Marshall asked me if we could stay on a couple of days so I could attend a meeting with him at Battery Park. He is a senior member of the Marine Society of the City of New York and has a building wing named after him at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y. I respectfully declined, citing work back in Texas. My cousin Michael had an office on an upper floor of the second building the day they were destroyed, but thankfully he was in Florida on business.

Our story of 9-11 is not much different than many here in the Baytown area. In one way or another we were all deeply and personally touched by the 9-11 tragedy. America changed forever just 5 days after we returned to Baytown. The World Trade Center was like a giant American chin sticking out in an offending manner, just waiting to take a blind uppercut and take one we did. Hopefully we as a Country will never again allow ourselves to become so over confident that it takes another Pearl Harbor or a WTC disaster to open our eyes to terrorism.

Here in Baytown and surrounding areas we host very important Oil and Chemical industries and if the truth be known, we are still very vulnerable. Most of us know this and live with it every day. The one area we can not grow weak in has nothing to do with tanks, guns and American military might, but with our resolve. Our grandparents had it when WWII suddenly changed America and we need it now.

Ho Chi Minh proclaimed to everyone that America would fall from within during the Vietnam conflict; a simple war of attrition is all it would take to finally beat us and that proved true. We need a backbone like a saw-log in 2006 to stay the course and let time go by. Patience has never been our strong suit, but we need to get some of our old post 9-11 grit back. Many are crying out to do this and do that and go for a quick fix. We do not need a quick fix. We need integrity on a personal level and if our government is not getting the job done, then we need to be patient and vote in a new leader who has America’s best interest at heart and quit all the bickering which will destroy all our forefathers worked for.

Frank Zappa put it this way: Don't clap for destroying America. This place is as
good as you want to make it.

© Bert Marshall 9/5/2006

Resizing a giant digital pic so you can send it across the web

Most digital cameras these days take large megapixel photographs and when you send them to your family or friends across the Web, they receive a wall size picture that has a giant file size. Here is how you make the pictures web friendly.

Here is what you do to each picture to make them appear properly in email:

Find the picture you want to send.

RIGHT click on the picture, a menu will pop up.

select OPEN WITH ---> Microsoft Photo Editor

When the picture opens, at the top of the program select IMAGE ----> RESIZE

Move one of the sliders till it gets to 65%

Then save the picture by adding the letter a on the end. This will allow you to keep your original picture and share a smaller version across the web.

It will now be about a 5X7 and under 100K.

More scared than safe

Lately I’ve heard more and more people comment on how they wish the old days of security would return. Everyday we read or hear about some heinous crime and it’s not only in our national newspapers, TV and radio, but right here in Baytown.

The abduction and brutal murder of Shane Goodman one mile from my house has shook this feeling of anarchy to an extreme level. Daily reports of violence, armed robberies, identity theft and automobile burglaries while good people are enjoying a meal at one of our local restaurants is so common, we are learning to accept it.

The last time we Baytownians had this feeling, roving gangs of thugs were driving around town indiscriminately shooting bullets. It became known as ‘drive-bys’, like they were delivering the paper or something. It was scary times.

During those times I had a second job. I cleaned Marty’s carwash on Business 146 behind the Domino’s Pizza place and many a morning found me looking over my shoulder as a car rolled through with the headlights off. It wasn’t unusual for me to be there at 4am before I went to work and twice there was a drive-by within earshot while I was there.

Back then I was in quite good shape for a 40 year old man, being still active in martial arts and not willing to arm myself with a handgun, I played the odds. On top of that, I do not appear an easy victim, being a rather large man. I can conservatively say five years of anxiety passed without a serious incident and I thank every Baytown Police Officer who passed through the carwash while I was there.

It is comforting to see a police officer, if you are on the right side of the law, especially when criminals seemingly own the streets.

Thank God those days of gangs ruling the streets of Baytown are behind us, but now we face a more sinister threat, if that is possible. Young people plot and execute a plan to abduct and kill a man for his truck from a parking lot. Folks are accosted while pumping gas on a main thoroughfare in broad daylight. A paraplegic man is brutally beaten and dumped off in the country for a few measly dollars.

New York? Houston? No, my friend… Baytown, Texas.

I walked into my favorite convenience store last year and there instead of the friendly man with the eastern accent, was a fellow with black and blue marks on his face. I said “Car accident”? He said, “No, they tried to rob my store and I fought back. This store is all I have and I could not let them have it”. I like that man and I try to do my small item shopping there because I empathize with him.

I want my wife and children to enjoy a safe city. I want to stop and get gas on my way to work without wondering if I should slip my concealed handgun permitted .45 ACP into my pocket. Heck-fire, I don’t even want to carry that thing. I wish I didn’t feel the need to arm myself. I wish I never had to see a gun again the rest of my days.

A number of volunteer citizens in this town are quietly trying to figure out a way to help police and the city. It may be stronger neighborhood watches, or a tax increase to get more police on the street; we’re in the incipient stage. In reoccurring crime areas, we want to enlist the help of the apartment complexes, restaurants and stores in whose parking lots the crimes are taking place. We want them to insure our safety and the relative security of the parking lot while we shop, live or eat.

Baytown has long had a reputation of a bad town, high in crime, and a thug-town, Bubbaville. I don’t believe we need to let that continue, do you?

Friday, September 08, 2006

Crime is spinning out of control here

Crime in Baytown is spinning wildly out of control citizens! Armed robbery is occurring while people are pumping gas into their cars. As many as four hit and run type crimes are committed here every single day. There is enough lawn equipment stolen out of people’s garages each week to outfit a lawn service. As many as thirty cars, trucks and motorcycles are stolen or burglarized right here in our town every week!

Baytown has always had a migrant population and that's why we have so many apartments, storage buildings, and trailer parks. Some say it is this population doing the crime; some others say it is the seedy element from Katrina. I don’t know, but I do know this town has become cancerous concerning crime and it is on the verge of killing itself.

The solid citizens of this town who plan to continue to live here and raise a family need to organize and petition our local government and if this means higher taxes, then so be it. We need more 'boots on the ground' in this town. There is talk of organizing, but it will take participation of people who really care about this city. The dreaded ‘P’ word…participation’ long anathema to getting any changes here.

Local businesses are targeted constantly with thefts and burglaries. They need to get behind this effort. Honest citizens feel threatened while shopping and driving and are on the verge of taking their business elsewhere. Traffic rolls through red lights and stop signs with abandon and the speed limits are largely ignored simply because there are not enough police to enforce the wholesale disregard for simple traffic laws, let alone violent crime.

We do not need vigilante justice. We need more police patrolling. Seven officers patrolling in a town with a daytime population of 120,000+ people is less than half what we should have. We don’t need a bunch of well-meaning honest citizens marching up and down Garth Road holding signs to alert the whole country about our problem.

This city does not need to grow one iota until law and order are restored and citizens feel safe. It's is a complicated issue, but folks are ready to abandon this city right now over the crime problem. Most folks simply want to raise their family, own a nice home and shop without looking over their shoulder. They don't want to arm themselves and duck and roll like they live in a war zone.

We as solid law-abiding citizens should band together in some sort of official town meeting, and get the balls rolling on implementing a plan to take our city back from criminals. Businesses owners, especially the large out of town businesses need to put their back into this effort and show Baytownians that they are behind this effort. Our safety is more important than our dollars. Come on Baytown Government! Rebuilding Texas Avenue will do no good if there are no people to shop there.

What we need are people with organizational skills and the know how to set something up that isn’t based on emotion, but on a plan that keeps crime in check for the future.

Cough cough! Second hand smoke! Ban smokers?

Smokers versus non-smokers are squaring off and it's going to a vote right here in beautiful Baytown, Texas, a predominantly blue-collar town. The smokers feel their rights as Americans are at stake and the non-ex-smokers say the smokers are violating their air space and their health. Some want to stop smokers from smoking in public…any public. Smokers who own businesses want to make the call themselves without laws stopping them.

Here is another of my perspectives.

Raising the price and taxing the fire out of tobacco products is not going to stop anyone addicted to nicotine. I myself was addicted for many years, but haven't had a smoke in 30 years, or do I want one.

Back in the early 70's a company named Laredo marketed a cigarette machine and kit that allowed everyone to roll their own, so they didn't have to pay that exorbitant .50 per pack. Outside the USA those same Cigs went for .23 per pack, so with a little fancy 'rithmatic, it can be estimated that they were already marked up times 2+. The Laredo machine caused some unexpected results that were many times quite humorous, but that’s another story.

I feel just as strongly as any non-smoker about the smell and dangers of cigarette/cigar/pipe smoke.

Smokers know that smoking has no benefits. It's very expensive, it makes you and everything you come in contact with stink, you can't go anywhere without your smokes and lighter, it is dangerous to your health, you are an outcast everywhere because you smoke and the newest bad thing added to the list is it causes hypothermia on cold days! Smokers live for that smoke right after they eat, because that's as good as a cigarette tastes anytime.

Drunken smokers occasionally light the filtered end and find out later they smoked more than their daily allotment, because the next day they have sore throats. Check their shirts and there's burn marks and holes...also in the car and on the couch.

Yuppers! Smokers know all this better than anyone, but raising the price and causing the whole community to be divided over the issue is counter-productive. We need to be patient as a culture and keep educating the young people on the dangers of tobacco use.

The insidious addiction of tobacco usage cannot be dealt with socially by upping the price till it creates a black market.

Tobacco users are increasingly being viewed as criminals and the old question comes up: "What vice or enjoyment will be next?" I'm told in Golden Colorado, a homeowner cannot smoke on his or her own front porch because folks have taken second hand smoke to the extreme. Tobacco users know not to smoke in peoples face and they don’t spit tobacco juice where non-users will find it offensive.

We need education, not more dad-gum laws that only make people mad and lawyers richer. I've said this before and I'll say it again; if we are not careful, we are going to tune and refine until no one has any liberty or freedom left.

Congress initiates S. 3633 To require the withholding of United States contributions to the United Nations until the President certifies that the United Nations is not engaged in global taxation schemes.

It appears the United Nations has decided to once again make its move to tax the whole world including gasoline sales.

"The U.N. crowd has proposed an international tax on aviation fuel, a tax on airline tickets, taxes on international currency transactions, carbon use taxes, including a 4.8-cent tax on each gallon of gasoline, and other taxes on an extensive range of transactions, goods and services."

http://www.theorator.com/bills109/s3633.html

The world's richest Capitalists unite and globalize, globalize, globalize! Every time I hear that word, I shudder...

The ugly face of hatred

I would like to tell a personal experience story concerning prejudice as an example and as a learning experience to all who haven’t had it happen to them.

I was born in Toledo, Ohio, but my folks actually lived in south Michigan. It is and was an area much like Baytown as far as blue-collar workers are concerned. We were close to Ted Nugent and Kid Rock country, if that clarifies anything. When I was in junior high, we moved down to Georgia to a little town of under 1000 when my Dad went to work for Lockheed building the C5A military jet.

Woodstock Georgia is now a modern city with multi-million dollar homes and all the accouterments of any thriving city, but in 1967 it was still in the 1930’s in some respect. Many folks did not have indoor plumbing and the anti-Yankee hatred was very much alive. To their credit, the carpetbaggers had raped the south, but that was 100 years in the past. Old prejudices die slowly.

We lived about ¾ of mile out of town on the second hill. The first hill was “nigger-town” and my three brothers and I in our naiveté played baseball with the black kids. This gave us the dual stigma of being Yankees AND “nigger-lovers”. One fall evening, one of our black friends hit the cover off our only baseball. He said he had one at home, up on the hill, so together we went to get it. Now bear in mind north Georgia gets very cold at night in the Fall and Winter and when we came close to his house, I noticed all the windows in every house was knocked out and there were blankets over them.

I asked my friend why they didn’t have windows and he told me in a lowered voice while looking at the ground “at night the bad white people drive through here and shoot the windows out”. I was shocked senseless and this has never left me. I saw many, many episodes of racism in north Georgia in the 2 years I lived there and too much of it was directed towards my brothers and I. I was eventually beaten literally senseless at school and left in the hall only to awake and see the teacher at her desk with her eyes on her paper.

I staggered to my feet and entered the class as everyone sat in total silence. I told the teacher I needed medical attention and without looking up, she passed me a permission slip. I called my mother who lived 20 miles away and she took me to the doctor’s office in our little town for attention. The only high note in the whole affair was the 19-year-old sophomore who was paid to whip a Yankee, broke his hand on my face and I in desperation had landed quite a few also and he ended up in worse shape than me. By default I actually won and this victory carried me safely along until I moved to St. Louis.

I would like to add a note to this true account. Georgia also had/has many very good people and to this day I am in touch with them on a daily basis through a mailing list I administer.

Can one person make a difference?

The plan: Target one or more people for today's quest.

1. How can I make this person's day? Plan it.
2. Execute your plan
3. Write back here and let us in on the results using the comments section.
4. Reward yourself for making a difference.
Ideas:
1. Drop them a line and encourage them.
2. Help out a stranger.
3. Compliment someone you don't like and be sincere.
4. Buy a card and mail it.
5. Send an arrangement or flowers.

Good fortune and God bless!

Humor - Question of the day!

Woke up this morning about 0330 and decided to see if I had an email from my son in Iraq (didn't) and it was raining like crazy. I could hear my little dog whining from behind my door, so I let her out. Suddenly we had a bright flash of lightning and my doggie started hopping around by the window.


The lightning/thunder had scared her and she wet on the floor. This is the second time in a month she's done this when we had loud thunder. I took her immediately outside, but she wanted no part of all that rain and ran off into the house, ears back as if scared.


About this time the air-raid sirens went off at the end of the street. This is the Seek-immediate-indoor-shelter alarm the city put up in case we have a tornado, or a chemical plant excursion. All of a sudden through the pounding rain I hear 'BLAM' and my daughter comes out of her room and asks what was that noise?


I look in front of the house and a car has ran into the pine tree I planted about 10 years ago. I see two young people standing in front of the house and the girl is crying. I call 911 and they want me to confirm if anyone is actually hurt, which I can't do, as the young people are walking around in the rain with cell phones to their ears.


Anyway, the siren keeps going off and people are coming out of their houses to see what is going on and I look down and my legs are covered in mosquitoes. This is the worst outbreak I've seen of skeeters in years!


So, the cops come and in the meantime, I recognize the boy (21 years old) as a kid I taught Karate to about 10 years ago and he told me he lost control around the corner in the rain when his car skidded. We got all that settled and they towed his car to his house. I went out a couple of minutes ago to look at the damage and there was a copperhead laying on top of the water meter.


My question is this: Do these pants make my butt look big?

Is Global Warming George Bush’s fault?

No.

China has a much worse pollution problem than we do and it is getting worse by the day with their new found ownership of the automobile. In China almost everyone smokes cigarettes too. In most third world countries, people burn everything and I mean everything including tires. They dump everything into the rivers and streams.

Flaring at chemical plants in Europe is not regulated by fines like it is here in the USA. When they clear equipment, or have a shutdown, they open up their vents and smoke the flare until they are done. In this country Chemical plants are fined out the kazoo every time they smoke a flare.

Our problems here will not be solved in many of years of mandatory environmental emission (EPA) reductions without individual citizen detriments including job loss. It's very complicated and no one wants their lifestyle impinged upon, unless they do it voluntarily.

We need OPEC oil because we consume 25% of all the refined oil. We have to drill here immediately in virgin forests if we are going to break out of this dependency. Of course, we could become militant as a country, draw our belts up a notch, and get on with reducing emissions by using alternate sources of fuel.

I don't see that happening anytime soon, as no one wants to sacrifice. That's why folks are buying gas guzzling SUV's even now with gas at $3+ a gallon. Blaming this country for global warming, while the rest of the world dumps, burns, vents and belches to the atmosphere and oceans is not realistic. It is going to take a concerted effort around the globe by individual countries to slow down pollution.

To me, it doesn’t matter who is in the White House when it comes to solving our energy needs. If a Democratic president imposes super strict environmental controls to protect the/our “sustainable resources”, we will see mass unemployment and a general exodus of companies going overseas. They will pickup polluting the environment; right where they left off, but in another country that has no EPA laws and we will have no jobs.

We are at the same place this country was when we went from whale oil to fossil fuels. Folks lost jobs and swore the world would come to an end if we stopped whaling because it would cause mass unemployment and loss of everything they held dear. Well guess what? Folks changed because times changed and many folks clung to the old ways, but over time we made the transition and we will weather this one too.

Teach a man to fish...

Remember the old adage of feeding a man a fish for one meal, versus teaching him to fish and he feeding himself for a lifetime?


If GCCISD would promote the Vocational-Technical agenda of old instead of a general knowledge prepare-kids-for-conventional-college-type high school, wouldn’t there be more people exiting high school with above minimum wage skills?


Most high school students never complete their first semester of college. Why don't we help them early on, to enter the work force with skills that pay much more than minimum wage?


Baytown is in the process of building another High School and we have a smaller VoTech school, the Stuart Career Center, but it is not viewed as a primary option. This school is almost invisible to average Baytownians. If you ask around, folks will tell you we have 2 high schools period.


I suggest we take a hard look at pushing general knowledge (diploma) students with certificates of trade AND a high school diploma. An exiting student would have an actual trade when they graduate, which they could augment at Lee College for a full degree. This could start as early as the 9th grade and all the classes they need would be located at one school.


Baytown could become famous for graduating people who go into young adulthood with success and actual marketable trade skills. Many times a young person exits high school prematurely and finds the job market is dismal to say the least. This sets up a couple of options. One, work for minimum wage and this becomes their life. Two, pursue a life of crime. Three hang out. Four, join the military. Five, live off the government.


As a process operator of 30 years I am shocked at how few craftsmen are available without extensive on-the-job training. When my Plant has an extended turnaround, or new construction we have the hardest time finding craftsmen. What we get are boiler-makers. People hire in on turn-arounds as ‘boiler-makers’ that are not the true craftsmen that the title implies.


In this day and age we have a huge blooming population of young people whose only skill is video game related. Ask the average 18 year old boy to point out the alternator on their new car and they’ll stare at you with a blank look. My Dad could disassemble a car motor at 18 and at 18 I had half that knowledge.


A VoTech Mecca is what this city could become for young people and it’s time the City of Baytown began working to make it a reality.

“Oh! You were trained in the Baytown VoTech? Come in, we’ve been searching for someone with your skills”