Throughout my grammar & middle school years our nation was involved in a War where my family’s name was mentioned every other night. Discussions in schools became debates and then loud arguments over the war. These debates and events led me to understand that there were often vast differences or Gulfs between what was reported and what was the truth.

The purpose behind these electronic discussions, is to fill various gulfs in commonly accepted wisdom, fill in the gaps in our understanding, and to think outside the box or avoid the gulfs altogether.

Many of us in Erie have accepted the idea that the City and County have many, many gulfs or short comings that cannot be solved. We need to change our thinking. We need to fix the gulfs real or imagined. It is changing our thought that will correct where Erie is today and move it positively in the future.

For the record, I was born in Flushing, New York (some people have said that flushing, NY is a good idea for decades) and attended Hillsdale College, competitor of Gannon & Mercyhurst, and spent a decade in Bridgeport, Connecticut, another city facing many of Erie’s problems, or worse. We (me, my wife, three kids & two cats) moved here over ten years ago so I could be in the middle of my sales district, which went from Kentucky to Nova Scotia.

My politics are small “c” & “l” constitutional & libertarian. “We the People”, come up with the solutions and answers to our problems and concerns without the ignorance of social engineers, bureaucrats, and power politicians. Politically, less is more for me. Erie, in my opinion, has fallen to many of the ideas that have stunted not only our growth but, the Commonwealth’s and Nation’s as well.

Freedom cannot be free if you are over taxed, over-regulated, over-zoned, and over-programmed. To make over selves prosperous, we cannot steal from others at the ballot box. We cannot addict ourselves to entitlements and expect self-reliant citizens. And we cannot continue to inflate the currency without destroying our culture and civilization.

This blog will maintain a sense of humor, all things anticipated, and hopefully, be interesting enough for you to click-on and respond to from time to time. Write-in with thoughts and information. And unlike my middle school, we want to keep these discussions and not devolve into arguments. After all, we are, all of us, our Maker’s children, and he wants us to treat each other with respect and love.

My family has come to love Erie. However, we couldn’t understand the “locals” being so down on the area. We’ve come to see Erie as a diamond in the rough. It needs to be polished and cleaned, but first we need to decide to bend over and pick it up.