i would do it

I WOULD DO IT
i use to be an avid bicyclist
riding it for long rides especially on weekends
that is
until i moved to austin

i just didnt feel safe riding there
with all those cars zooming past you
it would just take one of them
to be texting or something
to wander over and take you out

i decided i didnt want to leave this world
that way

when we moved to the country n
i started reactivating my bicycling
it was those big ole trucks that zoomed by
that made me nervous

i even
walked a mile with my bike to the country roads
then would ride on them
dodging
dogs
pot holes
limbs
eventually i decided it was time to hang my
bike up for good
so i did

i never looked back

i switched to more slower modes of exercise
like
walking
hiking
working on the property here at the country n
we even have a sort of nature walk around
our property that is a mile long
you never know what youll see
rabbits
deer
turkey
snakes
bees
lizards
then i added working and gardening to my regimen
working at habitat for humanity
sort of added like
step classes up and down ladders
weight class lifting boards and rocks
so
when it was all added up
i still was getting a good work out every day
maybe
not quite as strenuous as bike riding

so last night as i was watching the news
i heard
you can ride your bike at cota for a few bucks every
tuesday night for the next 10 weeks

i go so excited
then
i remembered you dont have no bike

maybe i could get me an old school bike
like the one pee wee herman rode in his movies
the one that was in the basement at the alamo
in that movie

whats cota
its the circuit of the americas racetrack in austin
where they race f1 cars each fall
whats f1
outside the us its the most popular car racing in the world

the cota event here brings in thousands of visitors each fall
and
millions of dollars to austin

to get to ride a bike on there would be exciting
zoom down those straight aways
lean far far over to make those sharp pin curves
then
put the pedal to the pedal on the next straight away

now
if i had a bike
i might just consider
making that drive
to
having a thrill not available anywhere else in america

anyone got a bike for sale

the organicgreen doctor

teacher gonna teach

TEACHER GONNA TEACH

yep
thats what they are gonna do
teach
and
do it well i must say

here is the link to the article some of this info was obtained from
if you are a texas teacher
you should probably read it

texas is if it was a country would be one of the largest economies
it has 6 of the top 50 fortune 500 companies headquartered
in our state
it has 51 of the top 500 fortune 500 companies headquartered here
texas is third behind new york and california

it has more exports than california and new york
if it was a nation it would be the 12th largest economy in the world
based on gdp

it is ahead of south korea and australia
however
south korea is number one in education
australia is number four in education
the us is number seventeen in education
texas would be way down at the bottom if it was a country

so texas is a wealthy state
it would be a wealthy country

right
well sort of wrong

it ranks 43rd in education in the us
it ranks almost at the bottom for childrens health
thank goodness for mississippi

it ranks at the bottom in overall health care for its citizens

its a bottom feeder when it comes to childrens poverty

some of this is almost 3rd world like
no it is 3rd world like

seems shameful

north of texas and northeast of texas
are two states
that well those folks there in arkansas and oklahoma
well they dont really like texas much

so it seems
that texas dont like their teachers either

if you retired as a teacher in 2000 at say $1000 a month
you would still make in 2017 the same $1000 a  month
their buying power would be greatly reduced
there is not a cost of living adjustment provided
inflation slowly like a cancer eats away the teachers retirement

add to that
the fact that most districts in the state dont pay into social security
which means
those teachers may not get any social security
or
if they do it will be greatly reduced

my wife she will get less than half the social security that she
would have gotten if she didnt teach or lived in those other states

yes those texas hating states around us
their teachers get all their social security benefits

their state legislators did their jobs
they took care of their teachers

texas is a wealthy state
it has no excuse

now
they
the state of texas
plans to remove the pensions all together
to change to a 401k program

now i realize that that is what is happening all over the country
its probably going to happen
but
hopefully at least they will reinstitute the paying into social security
requirement for all the school districts

at least the blow
the amount of poverty that retired teachers will live in
will be blunted some

a teachers gonna teach

lets take care of these important folks in our lives
our kids lives

the organicgreen doctor

make earth great again

MAKE EARTH GREAT AGAIN

thats what i was thinking last weekend
saturday april 22nd
earth day

now that should be the slogan for all of us
we only have one of them
it cant be replaced
we cant leave and go somewhere else
if we mess this one up

yes i know we think we want to go to mars
billions of folks arent going to fit on that planet

so we are stuck with this one
there will not be another one
so
we need to do what we can to preserve this one
so our future generations
can survive

i remember as i have written before my first
time to see smog
i thought it was just some weird cloud color sitting down
on the los angeles basin as we drove for the first time
over the cajon pass down into that basin

my historian brother who was driving
said
no thats not a cloud
thats smog

it burns your eyes
makes you wheeze
makes it hard to see things at a distance
sucks to have asthma and emphysema
and
live down in this sewer of air
i thought to myself

now thanks to laws and rules
environmental ones
the air is better down in that basin
and
elsewhere

my dad told stories of fishing on a river near where they lived
they had a houseboat on it
then
the oil industry polluted the area
ruined the streams and rivers for generations

it took laws and regulations to stop all of this
pollution

when it comes to the earth
we cant take our foot off the pedal
we have to aggressively take care of this one
there will not be another
make this one uninhabitable
then
we are done

whatever you call whats happening
whether you believe its man made or not
its happening
the glaciers are melting
i dont see what we are doing polluting this earth
is really helping it
at all

private industry is not going to do it themselves
they have proven that for years
it takes our government enforcing rules
to make them quit dumping all that stuff in the air
in the water
in the ground
that
can ruin our one earth
forever

this
ruining our planet
may be our worst threat to our country

lets
take care of it
each of us
the best we can to keep it unpolluted

if not
we are in trouble

make earth great again

dont pollute
recycle
plant a tree


the organicgreen doctor