The Creek’s Running Dry
On the farm, a few years back, we had a creek with a swimming hole, and all the kids down the County Road would bring their friends who were out visiting from the City.We didn’t worry about chlorine in the water, lifeguards on duty, the “deep end”,
no inner tubes, no running, stay off the diving board, nor any of those important safety rules and regs they have in Municipalities today. But we survived.
The Ag man came around every so often to see how the crops were doing, and the seed rep would drop in to make sure everything was growing the way it should. Nowadays, we get all these nice government people from the milk board, the beef board, the grain board, HHS, OSHA, The labor board, the IRS, The EPA, and the federal Ag Dept…..
all giving us advice on how to farm. I don’t know back then how we ever made it thru a
summer without them.
It’s sort of like that at our little store in the Mountains now.
When we started out in the 50′s, the Mayor would come by every Spring to wish us well,
and our state senator would drop by for a chat every six years.
But yesterday we had the building
inspector checking the size of the front door for wheelchair access,
(It’s the new door we put in 14 years ago) the Town Clerk was here last week, checking on our Licence to Operate
(the price goes up every year) and the labor department, a couple of weeks ago. (to make sure our employees are
getting their mandatory two coffee breaks per day)
The Health Department was here, (Thank goodness we clean the toilet twice a week) the IRS (no comment)
The State Treasury (Check the sales tax collection, tax records, and licence)
and of all people the fire inspector (We had a fire in our block last Fall)
We hadn’t seen him in four and a half years. (He is the Mayors brother)
And it’s only July!
With all those great Government people coming to help us out in the summer,
I wonder how we ever got along without them.
But there is more help coming…
We try to hire healthy students for the summer, but now we are told they may
not be so healthy so we are going to have to buy them health care.
We don’t know how much it is going to cost,
but we have been assured that this will help reduce the national deficit.
The tax help we got a few years back is being taken away ’cause
I guess we don’t pay “our fair share”. (Those Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich)
Sales tax is going up again,
so we have to collect more to keep all this wonderful Government
help coming to our store. Local property taxes are going up again
so we can stay smart and safe and pay the annual increases in salaries
to all those hard working government employees, and save their jobs.
(The store property taxes have almost tippled in 12 years.)
Our monthly unemployment contibutions and Workmans Comp are going up again.
The water bill just jumped 19%, the electicity bill is up 12% over last year,
the Post office stopped delivering mail (we now have a box down the street),
and now to add insult to injury, the Feds are going to “measure our carbon footprint”
(we heat with that nasty natural gas don’t you know) so we can “pay our fair share”
and “save the planet”.
We are going up to the farm to visit for a few days.
It will be a real bummer if the creek has run dry!
