Expressions of an Acorn

By Curt Nail

I love my homeland, America. The United States of America has been the greatest nation in human history. Yet today, we are living in an era where change is coming, both swift and severe. This change is rapidly divorcing our past from our future. We are not what we were. This book contains ideas that could potentially once again make tomorrow better than yesterday. I have been told by a number of people to stop speaking out, because it will make no difference. I am just a voice screaming into the night. Yet I find a voice hidden by darkness preferable to the deafening silence of submission. Ideas presented here on government, church and state, healthcare, education, family, and immigration may yet revive the hopeful hearts of those who need it. Its time to dream again. Come. Let us dream together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512716122

Curt Nail

Curtis L. Nail Sr. grew up as a sharecropper in Baxley, Georgia. He went to school at Berry College in Rome, Georgia. Berry is a national treasure. It allowed students to attend class four days a week and work two. He graduated from Berry in 1962 with a major in physics, a major in mathematics, and a minor in chemistry. After Berry, he was an aircraft maintenance officer in the US Air Force with service in the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and the Pacific Air Force (PACAF). In 1965, he made his life’s most important decision. He married Ms. Marilyn Ann Jeffries of Rome, Georgia. After he finished his tour in South Vietnam, he worked at The Boeing Company for six years on the Apollo Lunar Landing Program. He used computer simulation analyses to determine the payload capacity of all the Saturn V launch vehicles and assisted in development of guidance commands for the first stage (S1-C) on each of the Saturn V missions. The third vehicle stage (S-IVB) actually burned twice on each mission. The first burn placed the vehicle in circular orbit about the earth. After a specified time delay, the S-IVB engine was reignited to place the payload on an orbit to the moon. Curtis helped develop the target pre-settings for the second S-IVB burn. Pre-settings specified the conditions for second S-IVB burn termination. When the termination conditions were reached, the engine was shut down and the payload was on an orbit to the moon. On July 20, 1969, he helped placed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, a good day by any measure. Curtis was associated with the Computer Sciences Corporation for eleven years. He performed simulation analysis studies on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). He assisted in the development of electronic countermeasure algorithms for radar and antiradiation missile (ARM) systems. As a part of the algorithm effort, he helped design the first decoy system for the Patriot Radar. The decoy system was designed to protect the Patriot missile system from attacks by ARMs. Unfortunately, the decoy system was too expensive and was never fielded. After the Computer Sciences Corporation, Curtis spent twenty-three years with a small engineering firm called SRS Technologies. Here he conducted simulation performance studies on President Regan’s “Star Wars” concept. After these studies, he helped generate requirements for development of the ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) system. The GMD system was designed to defend our country against small ICBM attacks. It uses an interceptor missile equipped with a kinetic energy (non-explosive) warhead. The warhead destroys the incoming ICBM by crashing into it. The GMD system is currently operational. Let’s pray that we never have to use it. After a forty-five year career, Curtis retired in September 2007 and is working diligently to become a Grumpy Old Man. With proper preparation, he will first become a Fogey, then a Codger, and finally, the ultimate achievement, the Grand Order of Geezer.

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Copyright © 2015 Curtis L. Nail.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-1613-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-1614-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-1612-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015916936

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/18/2015

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

The Early Days

Tough Times

High School Football

Farmer’s Walk

Government

In the Beginning

Representation

Government Accountability

Government Spying

Government Spending

Consequences

A Word on Taxes

Legal Reform

Sovereign Immunity

Church and State

Religious Freedom

Prayer in Schools

Health Care

Competition

Waste and Fraud

Cost control Incentives

Violation of Beliefs

Hidden Costs

Health Care System

Health Care Administration

A Modest Proposal

A Word on Life

Education

Hindsight

Funding

Competition

Innovation

Family

School of Life

Family Stress

Penal System

Government Support

Immigration

Illegal Immigration

Eliminate the Rewards

Epilogue

About the Author

References

This book is dedicated to those who love the United States of America and believe in the concepts upon which it was founded.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Ed Jackson for the support he has provided me over the years. Ed was my supervisor for a long time. For years he wore a small, neatly trimmed beard. One day he came to work clean-shaven. That morning, he and I were stopped in the hallway by a guy we had worked with for years. The guy stared at Ed for a very long time. Finally he said, There is something different about you. Ed replied, I’m wearing a new shirt. The guy said, That must be it, turned, and walked away.

There are many times in life when we look but don’t see.

I thank Ed for reviewing this book. I appreciate his comments and suggestions.

Most of all, I want to thank my wife, Marilyn, for tolerating me for fifty years. She has been overly blessed with tolerance. I thank Marilyn for reviewing this book and trying to straighten me out. However, there are some nails that can’t be straightened.

Prologue

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

—Oscar Ameringer

While in school, I had a strong interest in government. I thought public service was the pathway to helping people. In my junior year of college, I ran for president of the student government. I was totally naïve. The night before the election, a group of opposition students went through the dormitories telling our classmates that I was planning to turn all students who drank in to the school authorities. I lost the election. I didn’t find out about the opposition’s mischief until after the election. This experience left a deep impression on me. I think I would have preferred to remain naïve. In my senior year, however, I did campaign for, and was elected, president of the senior class. Since that time, I have stayed as far away as possible from government and politics.

For many years now, I have wanted to speak to my country and my government. This is my attempt to do so. I am a practical, opinionated, hardheaded, patriotic redneck. I make no apologies for who I am or what I believe. I hope you can respect my views and opinions, because I promise to respect yours. So let’s sit and reason together. Then we can walk as brothers and sisters into the future of the greatest nation on earth. It helps if we hold hands during our walk. Unification is a powerful force.

This story is filled with my observations, experiences, ideas, opinions, suggestions, proposals, and rhetorical questions. So I thought some insight might be better conveyed by telling you something about who I am and where I came from. I will provide a little history, primarily to convince you that life was not handed to me on a silver platter. My views are not from the mountaintop. My views on life, people, and government could be referred to as the expressions of an acorn. From an acorn’s position, I can see the forest.

This is a story about what I see.

The Early Days

Some people in this world were born in odd places. I was born on a bridge across Sweetwater Creek in southern Georgia. The year was 1940. At least that’s what my mother told me. I have always known her to be a reliable witness, and she happened to be there at the time. If my mother hadn’t come along, there is no telling who I might have been. Some people will do anything and create any inconvenience to get here, you know?

On the way to the hospital, I decided my time had come. My father got the vehicle stopped in the middle of the bridge across Sweetwater Creek, about three or four miles outside Baxley, Georgia. That road has since become US Highway 1. I came kicking and screaming into a strange, new world. I have since roamed this world, which is filled with beauty, hope, and wonder.

I am the eldest son in a family of nine children. There were three girls and six boys. People had large families in those days because farming was a labor-intensive process. At least that’s the accepted reason. However, I have wondered what the world would be like if Viagra had been discovered long before birth control. I’m a wonderer, you know? And I’m acquainted with the facts of life. People cause accidents, and accidents cause people.

My father was a sharecropper, and times were tough. There were essentially no jobs and no money. Possessions that could not be grown or made by the family were extremely valuable and therefore treasured. As children, we were allowed to skin our knees, elbows, or feet, but we were never allowed to tear our clothes. Skin grows back. Clothes cost money.

While I was growing up, we bought flour in twenty-five-pound sacks. People of culture called them bags, but rednecks never used bags. The sacks were constructed of printed material that Mom made into dresses and shirts. We raised sugar cane to make our own syrup. Mom always had bread and syrup in the kitchen. There were McMom kitchens long before there were McDonald’s restaurants.

When we got hungry, we went to the kitchen, got a biscuit, turned it on edge, stuck a finger in the side, and hollowed out a nice-sized hole. We then poured the hole full of syrup. After it soaked for a moment, we had a snack fit for a king—a hungry king.

Time transforms hard times into fond memories.

When I was six years old, I lived on a farm in Appling County. The school bus came early every morning to collect those sentenced to a life of reluctant obedience. I was so opposed to the concept of school that it made me ill. My health rapidly deteriorated to the point where I was sick every morning, because school was such an offensive activity. Yet as soon as the school bus was out of sight, I recovered completely. It was a miracle, every morning. I could run, jump, and frolic with the best of them.

I called these sudden reversals in my state of health miraculous transformations. My mother, unfortunately, did not believe in miracles at the time. In fact, she accused me of faking sickness just to get out of going to school. Can you imagine that? My own mother! Of course, I was totally bewildered as to how she could think such a thing, until she introduced me to the board of education.

You would be amazed at the impact the board can have on the state of a six-year-old child’s health. I recovered fully from all of my maladies. I was almost never sick again. Even when I didn’t feel well, I was reluctant to mention it, because the board of education had come to live at my house.

The board of education was one of the great motivators in my family. It was used to resolve disputes, alter moods, and refine attitudes. Regardless of how we achieve it, we do much better when we’re properly motivated. Early in life, everyone should be introduced to the board of education, but it should never be overused or used to abuse.

I plowed my first row when I was six years old. Thereafter, I helped with the plowing and planting. The old mule that I worked would occasionally have spells. While plowing, she would stop and lie down in the field. I would sit down and wait for her. After a while, she would stand and we would continue plowing.

I always plowed barefooted. People were born without shoes in those days. Occasionally, the plow would kick a rock up to the top of the furrow, and it would roll back down to the bottom. When my foot was moving forward at the right speed and position, the rock would take off a toenail.

When I lost a toenail, the old mule would stop and wait while I sat on the edge of the furrow, cried, and rubbed dirt in the wound to stanch the blood flow. When I completed the medical procedures for a lost toenail, I would stand, and we would continue plowing.

It takes cooperation to put food on the table.

We were sharecroppers. Times were hard, and food was scarce. Money was almost nonexistent. We grew tobacco, corn, cotton, and peanuts on the farm. We always had a large garden. Poor people had to grow most of what they ate. Family size was rather large because the families helped each other with the crops. Farming and manual labor were close acquaintances.

We never went hungry, but there were times when we had only coffee, sugar, and bread. We poured the sugar on the plate, poured the coffee on the sugar, and sopped it with bread—a feast for a ravenous redneck.

When I was around eight years old, I got to go to town once or twice a year. I always went to the moving-picture show as soon as I hit town. If I remember correctly, theater tickets were nine cents at the time.

As soon as the movie was over, I went to the bakery about a block and a half from the movie. I couldn’t afford a donut, so I just walked up and down the street, always staying near the bakery. I savored the bakery fragrance until it was time to go home. So from one bakery sniffer to another, have a nice day, and stay close to the bakery.

I grew up in the flue-cured tobacco region of southern Georgia. Tobacco season really started in midwinter or early spring. The first step was to locate the densest palmetto and gallberry thicket. In step two, the ground was cleared and the tobacco beds were sown. A tobacco bed was four yards wide and a minimum of twenty-five yards long. Some ran up to one hundred yards long.

The quoted reason for tobacco bed locations was to avoid weed seeds and plant diseases. I think the real reason was that clearing new ground in midwinter is essential to the development of a redneck attitude.

Once the beds were prepared, they had to be watered about twice a week. Our irrigation system was a 1935 1.5-ton Chevrolet