As a young teenager I worked on the family farm in TN during the early 70’s driving a John Deere 4020 tractor and walking up and down endless rows of cotton with a hoe in my hands. I guess I was one of the last Americans to get paid to “chop cotton” - truly the son of a sharecropper.

Since those days I’ve obtained my engineering degree and walked the hallways in some pretty amazing places. Now I run my own company, and am trying to get back to my roots again a bit (but never so far back that I’m in that cotton patch!).

One important thing that’s taken me far too long to learn is that there is a difference in America between “the government” and “the country”. I’ve come to realize that “the country” consists of the citizens, and our symbol is Old Glory. The government is just the collection of mostly pompus asses that for some reason we’ve seen fit to empower to run our country - they’re nothing more or less than our hired hands - and the sooner we come to realize that the better offer we’ll all be. And those pompus asses often don't really care for the flag - because it serves to remind them who the bosses really are.

For this old Tennessee country boy this is what Heaven still looks like: