Jan. 22, 2010 | Running With Sporks | |
Lesson From Michigan
Earlier this week, an email that had been forwarded until it finally reached my in-box in Alaska, merited posting; the message, well, it speaks for itself and follows.
Emergency Weather Bulletin
This text is from a county emergency manager out in the western part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan after a severe snow storm …
The Mining Journal,Marquette, MI
WEATHER BULLETIN
Up here in the Northern part of Michigan we just recovered from a Historic event — may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions” — with a historic blizzard of up to 44″ inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10′s of thousands.
FYI:
Obama did not come.
FEMA did nothing.
No one howled for the government.
No one blamed the government.
No one even uttered an expletive on TV.
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.
Our Mayor’s did not blame Obama or anyone else.
Our Governor did not blame Obama or anyone else either.
CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC did not visit – or even report on this category 5 snow storm.
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.
No one looted.
Nobody – I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.
Nobody expected the government to do anything either.
No Larry King, No Bill O’Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.
No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Brad Pitts, No Hollywood types to be found.
Nope, we just melted the snow for water.
Sent out caravans of SUV’s to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.
The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn’t ask for a penny.
Local restaurants made food, and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snow bound families..
Families took in the stranded people – total strangers.
We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.
We put on an extra layers of clothes because up here it is “Work or Die”.
We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for ‘sittin at home’ checks.
Even though a Category 5 blizzard of this scale is not usual, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.
I hope this gets passed on.
Maybe . . . some people will get the message, the world does NOT owe you a living.
This spoke to my heart and independent spirit, and addresses one of my first life lessons; the world doesn’t owe me anything, but I owe it everything. tlcorbin©all rights reserved 2010
