This is a personal story, not political, although I’m sure it will be before I’m done.<\/p>\n
Those who read closely probably are aware that I’m ready to embark on a new “real job”, ending my second “early retirement”.\u00a0\u00a0 Yesterday, I took a train to New York City with a couple purposes in mind – what are the limits of my physical abilities at this point?\u00a0 How do I feel about maybe living in a big city?\u00a0 (the job will be in Chicago or working remotely from CT – probably my choice).\u00a0 I also wanted to visit Penn Station (where Amtrak and the LIRR run, and New Jersey Transit has service to Liberty Airport in Newark.<\/p>\n
I’m pretty exhausted by the time I get to Penn Station and it’s a very hot day.\u00a0 I dump into a hole in the wall McDonald’s and order the chicken sandwich combo.\u00a0\u00a0 I start to ponder where I am and just how much it took for that meal to be in front of me.<\/p>\n
The chicken probably came a farm in Arkansas.\u00a0\u00a0 The lettuce from a farm in California, the slice of tomato from Mexico.\u00a0\u00a0 The french fries were probably from potatoes grown in Idaho cooked in oil from trees in Africa.\u00a0\u00a0 The bun was probably made from flour grown in Kansas.\u00a0 The soda was sweetened with HFCS made from corn grown in Iowa, and the water came though an aqueduct\u00a0 system built in 1842.\u00a0\u00a0 The garbage from my meal is probably being loaded onto a train to be sent to a landfill in Indiana.<\/p>\n
When the Founding Fathers sat around in 1776 planning our future, most of what they ate and drank was produced from within a few miles of where people were (tea being an exception).\u00a0\u00a0 The road from Boston to Philadelphia was about the only reliable long distance transportation.<\/p>\n
So as we celebrate our independence from King George, it’s worth taking stock and realizing just how much today’s society is dependent on layer on layer of complexity of logistics, most of that needing reliable inexpensive transportation and an efficient distribution and storage system.\u00a0 Does that make us more free or less free?<\/p>\n
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This is a personal story, not political, although I’m sure it will be before I’m done. Those who read closely probably are aware that I’m ready to embark on a new “real job”, ending my second “early retirement”.\u00a0\u00a0 Yesterday, I … Continue reading