Let me tell you a story about a man named Jed. A poor mountaineer who barely…
No, wait a minute, that isn’t the right story.
Sorry, wrong book.
Ah here it is.
Hello and welcome to Prof. Bob’s Story Time. Today’s story is about how not remembering history will land you in a huge heap of cow poop.
Are you ready children? Good here we go.
A long time ago, in the country known as USA was a beautiful Golden Land known as California, where the people lived a golden life and whose gross income was that of a small emerging nation. In this Golden Land where the sun always shined and the young women walked around in what would amount to three sheets of Kleenex on strings, there was happiness everywhere you looked. There were strong industries that supplied jobs aplenty, top rated colleges and universities, nice tract houses with swimming pools, home of the movie stars and more wine than all the winos in both New York and Chicago could drink in a year. In other words a modern Eden, (remember the women in the Kleenex and strings?).
The Golden Land was so popular that ten thousand people moved there from the eastern part of the country each year to get away from the crime and cold weather that made everyone angry and mean towards their fellow men. In California everyone was tanned and smiling, at least that is what all the television shows and movies showed you, so why not believe them? They wouldn’t make stuff like that up would they?
Also in this land was a smaller subdivision of Magic called Disneyland, built by a man who sought only to bring family entertainment to all, but like so many great thinkers and dreamers, his land would fall into evil hands, who would subvert it for the sake of money and profit. But that is another story for a later time.
At the time this story begins the elected leader, or GOVERNOR of the Golden Land was Ronnie the Reagan, who had once been an actor in the movies and was very business savvy having run the Screen Actors Guild for many years, so he knew how to make the land better. To this end he had stored money collected from many forms of taxes to build an emergency fund in case of disasters or any bad things that might happen to the beautiful golden land. He had worked long and hard to make the land prosperous and free of federal aid. But his term was coming to the end, and the people looked towards choosing a new leader.
Now as with any mythical and magical place where there is happiness, beautiful beaches and those women dressed in next to nothing; there was evil lurking on the sparking California horizon. This evil had clothed itself in a guise of YOUTH and NEW HOPE. He was indeed a youthful fellow, but he was the son of the governor who had almost bankrupted the Golden Land many years before Ronnie the Reagan had taken office. This youth was known as Jerry the Brown Jr., (his father being Jerry the Brown Sr.). He was young well educated and raised in the Golden Land, he spoke well and except for the severe dark eyebrows that looked like they needed a weed-whacker to trim, he looked youthful. He was a child of the generation “Free Everything;” free love, free food, free mindedness, free, free, free. This point will come back later to haunt the people of the Golden Land.
Well, as you may have guessed he won the election and became the new Governor of California.
All seemed well until he actually started to do things, and then things went not so well. He decided he didn’t want the nice big Governor Mansion, so he sold it and moved into a luxury condo. Then he decided that the welfare regulations were too strict and made them easier for those in need. This backfired, because other states learned how easy it was to get on welfare, (the only real requirement was “are you breathing?”), and that you didn’t have to be a long term resident of the Golden Land to qualify. So they began sending their welfare dregs to the Golden Land so that heir states could boast lower welfare costs while California’s went up. Now the cost of welfare began to rise and those who actually had jobs were now paying more for those who didn’t want jobs from other states that had shown up asking for all the free money.
He started many other such programs, even waging a war on political corruption in the form of the dreaded magic paper called PROP 13, which didn’t stop the corruption, just moved it to another part of the state legislature. All these programs fell nicely into his free thinking stance he had said during his campaign. Slowly but surely while no one really was watching the reserve funds that were established by Ronnie the Reagan were almost gone. The media who had once been his friend, now referred to him as “Governor Moonbeam” because of his hippy attitude that was no longer youthful and new, just costly to the tax-payers.
Luckily for the people of the Golden Land his term ended, before the state had to file for Chapter 11.
Since his time many new Govenors were elected some good, some corrupt and one impeached, until a true hero came on the scene: The Govenorenaitor! He was big, he was strong, and he spoke broken English! He was the poor emigrant who made it big. He was an icon of the age, his presence moved mountains, if not, he would move them himself! He even married a member of the great royal house of Kennedy! He was the true symbol of the Golden Land!
He was a no-nonsense leader. He changed the rules for welfare it wouldn’t be bleed dry, he focused on balancing the budget to help save the Golden Land, but at every turn he was stymied by those who still followed the “Free for All” thinking who had survived from the Moonbeam times. He tried to fix the problem that had been laid on his really muscular shoulders. He was making headway, but it was slow moving at best.
Last night his reign ended. And now the darkness has returned…. Moonbeam is back! He isn’t youthful anymore, he isn’t new anymore, his forehead does look like the full moon though, and he still is preaching NEW HOPE.
But deep in the pile of papers he carries with him to the Governor Condo he once occupied decades before, there is one that is tri-folded neatly and crisply, almost lovingly like a cherished heirloom. In bold letters typed clearly under the title are the words: “Chapter 11 – The State of California.”
