Greetings fellow humans. Welcome to my brand spanking new blog site. This is something that I have wanted to do for some time now. Ever since I was in high school, I have wanted to do some writing. I had originally thought that I would be writing novels, short stories, fiction, of some sort, and who knows if this works out maybe that could happen down the road.
So I figured it would probably be a good idea to introduce myself, give a little biographical info, as well as where I envision this site going in the future. So here goes. My name is Dan Scott. You'll see my blogs under the name of mscott1065. My obscure homage to Mr. Scott from Star Trek. I was born in 1959 in Chester, a small town in northern California. My parents moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1970 settling in what was then known as the “egg basket of the world” Petaluma. I graduated high school in 1977 and even though my parents were willing to send me to college, by the time I graduated I was done with having to go to school. Especially after what my older sisters and brother had gone through. Besides, I was going to be a rock star. Needless to say that didn’t work out, although playing my guitars is still a big part of who I am.
I settled into a job in the automotive parts biz. Starting out as a delivery driver at the local Ford dealer in Petaluma, before ending up, after a couple of stops in Novato and San Rafael, at the Ford dealer in Santa Rosa. It was there I spent 38 of the last 39 years. I spent a year in Fremont, between 1989 and 1990, just in time for the Loma Preita earthquake. I moved up the ladder until in 2008 I was promoted to department manager. That position didn’t really work out so well. I am an old school kind of guy, and at that particular time, the company was going corporate, becoming a dealer group with 7 franchises under their flag. Instead of letting me go, they offered me a gig as Wholesale Manager/Assistant manager, which was much more suited to my strong points, and as an added bonus, got me out of all the pointless manager meetings. I continued in this role until last year when I experienced what a lot of workers my age have experienced, being “aged out” of their job. In other words, I was too old and made too much money, even though my sales surpassed the two other salesmen in my wholesale department put together, in addition to all the other duties I had running the wholesale operation. In the last year I have read a lot of stories about people who have experienced the same thing. I think it is a travesty, and shows the lack of foresight of these businesses. To forego all the accumulated experience of older workers, their knowledge, their work ethic, in favor of reducing expenses in the short term. I am absolutely sure that this will come back to bite those companies in the end. I mean, I understand the why of it, I just think that tossing good workers aside due to a temporary situation shows a lack of true foresight. Especially when in the case of my company, they told all of us employees how we were a family, and how much they valued us. Hell, I even earned a prize for increasing my sales by over ten percent from the prior year, no easy feat. So, when the lockdowns happened, and my job was determined to be essential, (I hate that term with a passion, EVERY job is essential!) I didn’t think that I would eventually be let go, which I was after five months in laid off/furlough limbo hell.
Which brings me to where I am now. After a few months of me hanging around waiting for my employer to call me back to work, my wife figured it was time for me to look at what I was going to do in the future. I contemplated getting back in the auto industry, after all I was pretty damn good at what I did, but my termination experience had left a real sour taste in my mouth. I thought about maybe just starting over at a retail store of some kind, like a grocery store perhaps, which I still might do (especially if this doesn’t work). I thought that with all the “govment cheese” being spread around, now would be as good as time as any to do the things that I really wanted to do. That is playing music and writing.
Ever since I picked up a guitar and started coming up with some original songs, I have wanted to know what they would sound like if they were professionally recorded. As fate would have it, I found out that one of my neighbors is professional musician/producer, Craig Caffell. He records and distributes his own work, exceptional by the way, but he is also the guitarist for Maria Muldaur’s band. We became friends over the ensuing weeks, jamming in my garage/studio/workout gym, of course, always being socially distant. With the lockdowns in place, and no gigs forthcoming, he was willing to take me on as a side project and record some of my original songs, which when finished I hope to be able to link up to this page.
The next idea was supplied by my lovely wife. She came up with the idea of a blog, or a Youtube channel as a way to start a forum for people like me who have been aged out of their jobs. So here we go.
I decided to call this blog, “Meanderings of The Common Man”, because, well that’s exactly what it is, a place to express my thoughts about any number of different topics that might interest people in this situation. This would include but not strictly limited to political discussions, anything that I or my readers might find interesting or poignant in today’s new reality. Also, I want this site to be a forum for anyone to share their ideas, stories, opinions, whatever. The only thing that I require is that we be, in the words of those great philosophers, Bill and Ted, excellent to each other. No name calling, no ad-hominem attacks. We treat everyone on this page with the respect due to our fellow brothers and sister. On this page the “Golden Rule”, rules.
I will state for the record that I am a freedom loving politically conservative, long haired country boy. I believe in American exceptionalism, that the constitution and form of government that our founders established is the best ever devised by humans. That’s not to say it is perfect, or that our countries history is without blemish, obviously that is not the case. Still, we are a nation that always strives to do good, that Americans are people that really, deep down care about each other, despite what you hear from the media.
The one thing that I truly despise is the censorship of ideas and thoughts. Something that I see happening right before our very eyes. It is something that I thought could never happen in America. Yet, you see it every day, “cancel culture”, “being woke”, “social justice warriors”, social media platforms that restrict and censor thought that doesn’t fit their agenda. All of these promote the censorship of political and social ideas, and go against EVERYTHING our founders stood for. There is a reason that freedom of speech is in the first amendment to our constitution. Which along with religious freedom, and the right to peaceably assemble have been trampled under the lockdowns. Our founders understood how important these rights are, and how vital they are in maintaining our republic.
I will also state for the record that I don’t believe in the concept of race. Ethnicity is one thing, to be sure, there are innumerable cultures and beliefs in this vast world. The idea of dividing us by something as stupid as the color of skin makes my skin crawl. I try to look at everyone not by what they look like, but frankly, whether or not they are an asshole. I mean, it really doesn’t matter what you look like, where you come from, or what your individual beliefs may be, if you are an asshole, then you are going to be more inclined to be a racist, a homophobe, some intolerant anti-freedom loving douche bag, or whatever form of slime you turn out to be. I don’t really care if you disagree with the things that I write. You can’t please all the people all the time. I have no issue with people expressing opposing views, in fact, I want to encourage it, as long as it is done with thoughtfulness and respect, no “assholiness” will be tolerated.
That’s all for now, I will try and post something every few days or sooner if I feel that I have something to say that might be of interest. I have a story to tell, as I’m sure a lot of people do as well. If this space can be a place for that, then my mission will have been accomplished.
ROCK ON Y’ALL !!!!!!