{"id":322,"date":"2012-10-12T19:55:53","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T02:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/?p=322"},"modified":"2012-10-13T11:53:05","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T18:53:05","slug":"memphis-tn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/?p=322","title":{"rendered":"Memphis, TN:  Living the story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes you hear the stories and sometimes you get to just live them.<\/p>\n<p>Not wanting to brave a 17 hour Greyhound ride, I decided to rent a car for this leg of the journey. \u00a0It was a bit overcast as I left the hotel and I shared my ride and story with &#8216;William&#8217; the shuttle bus driver. \u00a0A imposing, but gentle man, I am guessing he was in his late 40&#8217;s. \u00a0He works,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As a shuttle driver for the hotel, early mornings<\/li>\n<li>For the City of Tulsa,\u00a0maintenance, rest of day<\/li>\n<li>Landscaping five homes, weekends<\/li>\n<li>And providing in-home elder care in the evenings<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"line-height: 22.5px;\">Four jobs to support his wife and 2 sons, one of which is disabled. \u00a0He would, by his request, remain nameless, photo-less and off mic for fear of losing his job with the City if they found out was employed elsewhere. \u00a0When prompted, his only concern was &#8220;making it though another day&#8221;. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span><span style=\"line-height: 22.5px;\">He is not a fan of Mitt Romney. \u00a0Succinctly he said that Romney &#8220;makes that kind of money, doesn&#8217;t work as hard as I do&#8230; \u00a0and pays less in taxes&#8221;.\u00a0\u00a0Still, his response when asked if he sees brighter days&#8230;. &#8220;Oh yeah&#8221; wide smile, &#8220;absolutely&#8221;.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I got in my rental car, a Mazda 2 (did you know they went down to 2?) that\u00a0weighs\u00a0only marginally more than my washing machine, but with a lot less pick up. The sky got darker and about 30 minutes later, opened up with a deluge that reduced my Mazda 2 windshield wipers to a toy-like appendages,<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_0763.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-321\" title=\"Deluge\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_0763.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_0763.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_0763-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_0763-250x187.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_0763-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a>I made my way slowly, nervously until about an hour later, me and my Mazda emerged on the other side. \u00a0A truth from the road &#8211; If you are traveling East on I-40 and manage to get ahead of a storm, you <em>keep moving<\/em>.<\/div>\n<p>Hungry? \u00a0Buck up. \u00a0Need a hairbrush? \u00a0Get over it. \u00a0Keep moving. \u00a0It only takes a glance in the rear view mirror to see the dark clouds and lightning. \u00a0Keep moving.<\/p>\n<p>Our country has been through a relentless storm. \u00a0Two wars economically compounded by two huge tax cuts and a financial collapse brought on by a banking free-for-all. \u00a0So when I hear a party platform that touts decreased regulation, decreased taxes, increased military spending, served up a with jingoistic middle east \u00a0topping, all I can think is, keep moving.<\/p>\n<p>Please America,\u00a0<em>keep moving<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Unrelated but somehow important. \u00a0Just as I was crossing the Memphis-Arkansas Memorial bridge over the Mississippi River, this came on the radio (seriously),<\/p>\n<p>[rtmp3 url=&#8221;https:\/\/dl.dropbox.com\/u\/108166614\/Audio2012\/Heartbreak%20Hotel.mp3&#8243; title=&#8221;Elvis Presley&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Keep moving&#8217;<br \/>\nJulie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/?p=322\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38,35,7,36,37],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accepting","tag-close","tag-hopeful","tag-positive","tag-too-negative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2012\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}