No I'm talking about an groundswell of righteous anger coming from people that are fed up with the way things are run and how their lives are going recently, myself included.
For years through the nineties things were humming along quite nicely, we were raising our families, going about our business, the economy was growing and expanding, housing prices were
going up every year, and then I remember my wake up call. It was Columbine H.S.
I remember sitting there in my parents old house watching the t.v. praying for those kids and teachers hoping they all got out or were safe in a locked room. The Church I played saxophone at was not far from Columbine and some of those kids and parents were members.
As the horrific events of that April day in 1999 unfolded I resolved that somehow I would get involved. This tragedy would not be for nothing and I personally would get involved with young kids and with my own kids education and well being so I took a part time band teacher job at a charter school in the Denver area.
For five very cool, rewarding, and frustrating (at times) years I taught scales, arpeggios, and Movie Theme songs to 4th through 8th graders. I took minivans packed with budding musicians to jazz band festivals, Core Knowledge Music Festivals, and Amusement parks at the end of the school year.
At the same time I was playing professional saxophone for about 80-90 paid performances a year and things were humming along nicely and then another wake up call. In 2001 I watched along with everyone else, first one world trade center tower hit with an airplane, and then another building hit and the America I grew up in suddenly became a different place. A more fearful, less confident place.
We were vulnerable, We could be attacked by radical fanatics who thought by killing innocent people on airliners and office buildings they would go to heaven with virgins.
Now as my oldest child gets ready to graduate from a suburban h.s. next year and by some miracle gets into college I realize that his place in the world is less safe than mine was. Less innocent, and not as forgiving a time as mine was. We are still involved in a war 9 years later, the economy is still in a deep recession, (in spite of billion dollar bank, car company bailouts), and it's politics as usual in spite of who is in the white House. Politicians are still in the pockets of Goldman Sachs, or some other large banking firm whether anyone wants to believe it or not, and most of us are still suffering from a horrible housing market and 10 percent unemployment.
Some will say "You don't have the right to criticize the government", and several million of us are saying, "Oh yes we do, it's guaranteed in the Bill of Rights". And that's what this country was built on. What many will find out this coming midterm elections that the Government serves the People, not the other way around.
Remember....I'm just the Sax Player, and that's my first Blog.
