I grew up in Louisiana during the 1960s and 1970s. My father, having been discharged from the military as a “China Marine,” spent the rest of his working life in law enforcement, serving as a Captain of our City Police Department and until the end of his life as the head of the Sheriff’s Department Civil Section. 
My mother worked as a civilian secretary at the local Air Force Base until she retired. They both came of age during the Great Depression, and from an early age I could see how that impacted their lives in enduring ways.
My experiences were much more comfortable, and in many ways a combination of bucolic small town and wilderness experiences. This included spending a great deal of time in the bayou country, hunting, fishing, and camping, which has left me with an enduring love of the outdoors. It was also a very turbulent time in our country’s history, with civil rights and the Vietnam War.
A member of my immediate family endured three tours to that then charming little corner of SE Asia and was gone for a year at a time. I recall the “signs” that designated white versus “colored” water fountains and restrooms.
I often went to movie theaters with my friends, and, having gotten bored with whatever was playing, we decided to explore the old downtown movie palace. I vividly recall discovering a balcony full of African Americans, who apparently accessed the theater through a separate entrance as we did not even know they were there. These were real challenges and very visible, visceral racism.
After completing high school, I attended a small, private, religious liberal arts college, where I was exposed to an excellent education that, in addition to my major studies, including World and American History and political science.
I am grateful that it was truly a “liberal” arts, an education that focused on actual history and the mechanics of how our nation is supposed to work. It was my first encounter with reading and studying the United States Constitution, and provided a foundation of being able to hear, read, and discern the events going on around me up to the present time.
Upon completing college, I attended graduate school at Louisiana State University where I earned a Masters in Social Work. I worked for a number of years in that field and have spent much of it in medical settings.
I learned the importance of organization, focus, customer care. This includes looking after “my” doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, as well as patients. In essence, I learned how to “get things done” with the goal of a safe, viable, and functional outcome.
This require two things: knowing what you are doing and persisting until a solution is found. Or, as Muhammad Ali put it, you must have “the skill and the will.” I believe that is a fundamental truth that applies to everything we do in life, if we truly want to get things done and get them done right.
After working several years, I became a bit more ambitious and decided to pursue an MBA degree, and to combine that with my knowledge and experience in the health care world.
Upon completing that in 2006, I became a regional manager of dialysis services and found my responsibilities exponentially expanded. I learned to be responsible for quality outcomes, human resources, (hiring and firing), financial outcomes, profit margins, new clinic development, and how to be comfortable with large audiences.
More than ever it seemed to be “try not, only do” as the only acceptable approach to getting things done.
So, credit creativity and persistence, not what resources can be applied in order to arrive at a good solution in a timely manner. I plan to work a few more years until I retire. In the meantime, I need to determine just what new purposes I will pursue.
When I recently became aware of the Convention of States Project, it appealed to me on several levels. One, I have become increasingly aware of just how overgrown, overspending, and overreaching our federal government has become.
At the same time, I realized that there is just no way that such an entity will ever do anything to diminish itself. It is the inherent nature of organizations to grow and expand, never to work itself out of a job.
This poses dire implications for many fundamental aspects of our lives: our natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the liberties to which every American is entitled, which are enshrined in the Bill of Rights and upon no form of government is supposed to tread.
Our financial future and security is seriously threatened with government “leaders,” who seem to have no notion that if you continue to spend what you don’t have, inevitably the entire system will go bankrupt.
Part and parcel with this are the career politicians whose priority seems to be self-enrichment and keeping themselves in power, not what is in the best interest of our country.
I spend time on websites and blogs, and while many persons decry these things and complain about them endlessly, no one has any positive solution.
COS is the only movement I have encountered that provides any sort of positive and realistic alternative. I am hopeful that I can support this cause, in whatever way I can, toward an ultimate victory for our country that will roll back many years of dysfunctional governance.
Politically, I am an Independent, and increasingly identify as libertarian with conservative leanings. I vote in every election, read endlessly, stay abreast of events, and value the freedoms that our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, sought to protect.
We are facing a crisis. Like our forebears, who risked everything to form a new nation, it is incumbent upon all of us who value a restoration to do what we can.
