The story behind our flea market

Our local Sunday Morning Flea Market came to an abrupt ending last week.  Someone fell over some of the crap, er merchandise, and sued naming the owner of the parking lot the deep pockets defendor.  The ensuing result was that the parking lot owner decided to close his obligation.  So the Flea Marketers are now looking for another lot.  My suggestion is that they demand the Trial Lawyers Association parking lot.  But since the Trial Lawyers have no such location, they would have to buy a parking lot somewhere.  An alternative is to use government parking areas on weekends.  These are rarely used on a weekend.  Plus, you can’t sue the government because you are the government and you can’t sue yourself.  There are several government lots—State Park of the Pioneer Woman Monument, city building parking, Vo Tech and High School.  I suppose the Head Start parking lot next to one of my rentals is too small.  The federal government workers habitually throw the tree limbs of their Chinese elms onto my lawn so I have to pick them up and dispose of them.  And why do they throw them onto my lawn?  So they can park in the shade under their own trees.  

            Today I was in the Tag Agency, which goes by the name DMV in most other states.  Several people have died at the Tag Agency due to strangulation by cob webs that have accumulated on their persons.  An old man was standing at the desk as we waited in line today and it took them nearly 45 minutes to figure out his car situation. The lady behind me said she thought he was trying to file a last will and testament.

            Why do we think government can fix things best? Comparing the government with private sector is like a baseball manager needing a pinch hitter in the bottom of the ninth.  Do you go with MVP who was given a day off or the government .184 hitter?   Inevitably something goes wrong and people clamor for the government to 'do something'.  Politicians thrive on doing such things.  There’s a big storm, like we are prone to have in Oklahoma.  Libs all say that the fix-up will stimulate the economy and the infrastructure will be rebuilt. Pah! Some help that is! Do you really think that we prosper by destroying property and wealth.  If that were the case, why not have a storm every day? Imagine the stimulus! What needs to be asked is this question, “What would people have done with that money if they didn’t have to spend it on re-building?  You could conceive of a massive earthquake having struck Silicon Valley years ago and the pols saying that the infrastructure is now rebuilt so wonderfully.  Yeah, but the Internet and iphones weren’t invented because of it. 

            So the people of OK are pitching in and helping their neighbors in the OKC area and the national media is stunned.  Why?  Do they expect us to sit and bellyache over FEMA not being here like they did in NY and NJ?  No, the sooner we get over this the better off us sooners will be.

            East coast crabbing is a sport, they say.   People talk about how the feds didn’t help Staten Island or Long Island enough.  It wasn’t fair!  Oh give me a break! The fairness arguments always sound like this, “That not fair that you have some benefit I don’t”  So then they take away that benefit from the privileged guy whereupon nobody has it.  Hence we are all equally miserable.  Fairness politics takes away the things that people aspire to.  It deprives the dreams.  It kills the American Dream. 

            To get ahead in life, stop fretting about all the things others have that you don’t.  Covetousness is not only a sin, it eats the soul away and makes talents go unused and worthless.

            Case in point.  A few years ago, I had a renter who could only find sporadic work and he apologized for being late with the rent.  I told him that at age 30, he was about where I was at age 30.  Perhaps he should figure out something he could do to supplement on the side.  And so he started re-fixing damaged things and doing flea markets.  Last I heard, he and wife had 3 kids and moved to Tulsa to a good job.  Don’t tell me flea markets are just junk.  Just let us have our flea markets and garage sales and don't try to come up with some sort of cash for clunkers program for them.  We're still doing fine, Oklahoma, without federal help.