Never Look at the Empty Seats

by Charlie Daniels

  It’s a thrill like no other, a dream come true, and an accomplishment that no serious country music career would be complete without.

  Troy and Eddie were ecstatic, and I knew the feeling.

  CHAPTER 56

  AIN’T NO FOOL LIKE AN OLD FOOL

  In my formative years, state-of-the-art communications technology was a dial telephone and a party line that at least one other family shared with you. This meant that you heard not only your phone ring but also the phone of the family, or families, sharing your line. The difference would be the number of rings, two shorts or one long, and so on, designating which line was being called.

  Of course, it was not unknown for some of the nosier ladies to put their hands over the mouth pieces and listen in. In fact, it was practically a neighborhood hobby.

  Technology and I make strange bedfellows. I could never even fully understand the workings of the internal combustion engine and have no idea how radio and TV operate. I certainly don’t have the analytical type of mind that understands computers.

  In fact, the first computers I remember hearing about back in the early fifties were reputed to be about the size of the average living room. Even understanding what the practical use of such a monstrosity would be went way over my head.

  So I decided I’d just ignore the whole thing. When the exponential explosion of digital technology started years ago and the desktop and later the laptop versions of computers started showing up, I still retained my reticence.

  But regardless of my greenhorn attitude toward computers and all things technical, our office headed in that direction full tilt. Even our road accounting turned into a weekly computerized sheet called the “road report.”

  When a young computer-savvy guy named Chris Wyatt came to work for us in 2000, he was instrumental in bringing our whole operation into the computer era. He instigated and helped design our very first website and suggested that, since I am an opinionated person, I should do an occasional column we would call the “Soapbox.”

  The column soon became a weekly feature, with me printing the content out in block letters and passing it on to one of the girls in the office to type and submit to the webmaster.

  Early on it became very evident that I should try to acquire at least a cursory knowledge of computers and the capabilities of cyber technologies. So, with the help of my son, Charlie, who had been dabbling in computers since he’d been around twelve years old, I purchased a laptop and began trying to learn how to put it to practical use.

  I had two years of typing in high school, so I was not a complete stranger to the keyboard, but the operation of the more sophisticated bells and whistles was a mystery to me.

  I was mainly interested in word processing and storage of my song lyrics and writings I wanted to preserve. In baby steps, I learned about how to create and file away the things I wrote. I had a habit of putting lyrics I was working on and other ideas I wanted to keep in notebooks and forgetting where I put them, only to run across them months or years later. Having a central place for storing them saved a lot of time and effort.

  Then came e-mail. It quickly turned into a vital element of communication, as I could e-mail my thoughts and ideas to whomever I wanted to share them with while the thought was fresh on my mind.

  It was to be several years before I was ready to tackle Twitter, but when I finally got around to it, it became a part of my daily life. I do regular daily features every morning: a Bible verse, a prayer, and something I call “Let’s all make the day count,” positive thoughts dealing with everyday life. And I sign off every night with, “Guess I’ll hang it up for tonight. Goodnight planet earth. God bless.”

  I’m fascinated by the instant global communication. With the touch of a key, I can talk to people all over the world, share ideas, and receive feedback, all in the space of a few seconds.

  I now carry an iPad around with me. Besides the communications features and centralizing my song lyrics and other ideas, being able to store the books I’m reading on it has become a most useful convenience.

  I read the Bible and four other inspirational books every morning. Trying to carry them around, plus the fiction novels I’m always reading, was a little too much for any briefcase I could hand carry on an airplane.

  Now I just take along the iPad, and the problem is solved. All of my books are available at the touch of a button.

  Even though I have been using cellphones since they were about the size of a brick and have evolved along with the styles and improvements, I am still amazed that I can hold a wireless device in my hand and speak to practically anybody in the world from practically anyplace in the world.

  That aspect alone floors me, not to mention the ability to take a picture at an opportune time and immediately send it anywhere or record a snatch of a song I’m working on.

  It’s amazing how willingly we assimilate the new technologies into our lifestyles and how quickly we become dependent on them. I think of the days when if I had even one telephone interview to do it would prevent me from making any other plans for the day because I had to be in the proximity of a landline. Now that seems like a long time ago.

  My introduction to the cyber world has made it possible to write and send in my “Soapbox” columns anytime and from anywhere, which is a huge convenience for me. I sometimes get them finished just a few minutes before I send them in.

  My biweekly pieces are available on our website but are also often picked up by other websites or publications. I’m sometimes amazed by the number of people who tell me they read them.

  The subjects in my column can range anywhere from my personal opinion on current events to the description of going shopping with my wife, which I rate about two cuts above having a root canal. This is my forum for expressing myself as a private citizen. I don’t believe in using my time onstage for anything but entertaining the paying customers. I restrict my personal political convictions to interviews and columns.

  The feedback can get heated at times, as I pull no punches concerning my feelings about politicians, fiscal affairs, corruption in high places, bureaucratic red tape, and the irritating habit Congress and the president have of wasting our money.

  I approach my writings with what I call “cowboy logic,” which is made up of three elements:

  2 and 2 is always 4.

  Water never runs uphill.

  If there is smoke, there’s a fire somewhere.

  My political philosophy leans to the right most of the time, although I consider myself an independent. I sometimes vote a split ticket in state races, as it is my opinion that an R or a D besides someone’s name does not necessarily demonize them nor is it a valid reason to cast my vote one way or another.

  I have very strong feelings about some of today’s sacred-cow and third-rail issues. I don’t hesitate to speak my mind about them, so I naturally garner my share of criticism from folks who feel strongly inclined in the opposite direction.

  For instance, I feel that life begins at conception and that taking that life, except in the case of saving the mother’s life, is murder.

  The Bible says that God knew us in our mother’s womb, knit the pieces together, and scheduled the days of our lives before we were born. And being much more concerned with pleasing God than pleasing people, I stick by my assumption.

  I believe that true marriage exists only between a man and a woman.

  I have rock-solid convictions about the Second Amendment and fully believe that US citizens have a constitutionally ensured right to keep and bear arms. I do not ascribe to the popularly accepted idea that the Second Amendment is meant to assure sports shooting and personal protection only.

  At the time the Second Amendment was written, our nation had just fought a war to escape the tyranny of a foreign government. I believe the framers were including the right to bear arms against oppression, foreign or domestic.

  There was a famous statement attributed to a Japanese admiral during World War II. When asked
why, since the US Pacific naval fleet in Hawaii had been decimated, the Japanese forces had not tried to invade the West Coast of the United States, he said something to the effect of, “There’d be a rifle behind every blade of grass.”

  I hope and pray that the day never comes when hidden cells of terrorists will openly attack on the streets of the United States. But any rational person has to admit that it’s a possibility, and a rifle behind every blade of grass would be a good thing.

  I believe that an able-bodied man should work for a living, and I have scant sympathies for those who are healthy enough to earn a living and instead find a way to sponge off the taxpayers.

  I have no use for a man who brings children into the world and doesn’t support them. I believe there should be strong laws that when a mother applies to the state for assistance, she be required to identify the father. It is an easy task with today’s technology, and he should be forced to support these children to the age of adulthood or spend the same amount of time in jail.

  I totally despise the fact that there seems to be two sets of laws. There is one for the common folks and one for the powerful politicians and high rollers, who seem to get away with whatever they do. How many politicians have you seen commit crimes, and their cronies circle the wagons and let them walk?

  I have nothing but disdain for politicians who put personal gain above the good of the country. It’s called “public service” for a reason. Too many times elected officials fall into the trap of lobbyists and major donors, developing a quid pro quo situation of give and take, all at the expense of the taxpayer.

  These people should be put in jail, but they seldom are.

  And, yes, I believe the press is biased and many colleges and universities are more concerned with political indoctrination than they are with preparing young people to be employable and competitive in the real world.

  I believe that maintaining not just a strong military but the world’s best military is absolutely necessary if we want to leave a safe and prosperous United States to our children and grandchildren. Armed forces with the manpower, the hardware, and the latest technology to defend the United States and US allies and interests.

  The United States has not finished a war since World War II. Our enemies know that if they can set the rules of engagement and hold out long enough, the mighty United States will pull out, many times leaving a mess that will eventually have to be cleaned up at a later date.

  I believe that Congress should have to live with the same insurance plans that are offered to the public. Our veterans should also be able to be treated by the same doctors and hospitals as the rest of the citizens.

  As is usually the case, the government can’t operate anything effectively. The current Veterans Administration is a prime example of that incompetence, an organization that can see its way clear to spend a hundred million dollars on art while veterans are dying because they can’t schedule an appointment.

  And, by the way, the VA is a prime example of the single-payer health plan. Is this the way you treat people who have laid their lives on the line for their country?

  I believe there are many things we can do to improve and sustain the environment. Having polluted streams and dirty air is unacceptable and unnecessary. I fully believe that there is technology that can accomplish those goals and that we should be pursuing them.

  But I believe that we will be burning fossil fuels for the foreseeable future and all the pie-in-the-sky alternative methods are decades from becoming the answer to our energy needs. In the meantime, we need all of our available energy sources—coal, petroleum, hydro, and nuclear. We should best be about the job of creating ways of using them more cleanly and efficiently.

  Insofar as polluting the planet, no matter what the politicians tell you, the Western nations are not the problem, as anybody who has ever been to the Orient, especially China, will tell you. Pollution in China resembles thick, gray ground fog.

  If you saw a nighttime picture of North Korea, you would see that 90 percent of the country resembles a black hole. There is no light, and it has essentially been deforested because the people have cut down anything combustible to use for cooking and heat.

  The same is true in parts of Africa, where the deforestation is so severe that there is no root system or undergrowth. The topsoil has been blown away by the wind, leaving an unarable desert behind. I believe in protecting the rainforest and in preventing the dumping of hazardous materials and pumping chemical waste and raw sewage into our streams and oceans. We should take steps to preserve the fish populations and protect endangered species of animals.

  But I personally do not believe that climate change is the clear and present danger many of our politicians would have us to believe. I believe that the universal thermostat is in the control of the Creator. If the planet is warming, it is His doing, and it is arrogant of humankind to think that we could have an effect on His grand design.

  I firmly believe that climate change is about power, pure and simple. It is a way of wresting control out of the hands of citizens and passing it into the hands of what would eventually become a global government. They would leech away personal freedoms, right to bear arms, and right to control what you do with your own property, your children’s education, health care, and law enforcement, even down to the plants you can grow in your yard and garden.

  The distribution of food and fuel, the dispensing and scheduling of health care, and who lives and who is allowed to die would be controlled by government.

  This would be a cold and impersonal confederation, where citizens would be numbers instead of people. Mandatory abortion and euthanasia would be standard procedure. This would be an oppressive regime where everybody would be expected to give up their individuality and bend their collective will to the will of the state.

  Sound fantastic?

  Take a good look at United Nations Agenda 21.

  Told you I was opinionated.

  To say that the America I knew when I was young has drastically changed would be a gross understatement. Some changes did great good and some did great harm.

  There have been monumental advances in civil rights and the discovery of medicines to cure diseases once thought incurable. Advances in transportation have shrunk the planet. The exponential technological leaps in communications and the Internet have placed the knowledge of centuries at our fingertips, to name a very few.

  But where there once existed a pioneer-like spirit of self-reliance and accountability, the acceptance of being liable for one’s own well-being, present and future, there is a growing feeling of entitlement. It is a dependence on outside sources to make up any shortfalls in our lives, whether self-inflicted or not.

  Too few are willing to accept responsibility for their own future and well-being. They are all too willing to let government take up the slack, which self-serving politicians are happy to do. It creates a cumbersome, inept, inefficient bureaucracy, which trips over its own redundancy and becomes a fiscal black hole that takes 75 percent of receivable revenues just to exist.

  Power-hungry politicians are readily willing to exploit society to stay in power. Even if it means pitting races and social strata against each other, they promise more and more and make it easier and easier to receive a government subsidy. In the process, they are creating a segment of society totally dependent on entitlements and ensuring a loyal voting bloc in the process.

  They advance the idea that the have-nots have not because the haves have. They are being kept from achieving affluence not by the lack of ambition, drive, work ethic, and good attitude but because the haves are stealing what is rightfully theirs.

  An unfair system is holding them down while allowing others to flourish. It’s really not their fault, even if they don’t make an honest effort to get a good education, even if they go from job to job and do just enough to get by, even if they show disdain and disrespect for other people.

  The truth is that opportunities exist for those who are will
ing to accept the fact that they’ll never rise above the fray depending on government subsidies. If you’re an unmarried young woman who has had multiple children by different fathers and depend on the stipend the welfare service sends you every month, you have locked yourself into a nightmare. Unless you’re an unusually highly motivated person, that’s where you’re going to spend your life.

  If you truly want to make something special out of your life, start with your attitude. If you’re going to be bitter, hostile, uncooperative, and disinterested, you can forget it. Nobody wants that kind of employee. As one who has had employees for more than forty years, I know what I’m talking about.

  The attitude that is going to get you noticed, valued, and therefore rewarded is to take the job you’re doing seriously, no matter what it is, no matter how humble or seemingly unimportant. With the right attitude, you can use it as a launching point, a stepping stone to better things. Here’s how:

  If you can’t get what you want, take what you can get and make what you want out of it.

  Why do some things cost more than others?

  It’s based on their value. Some things are just more valuable than others. It’s the same thing with employees. Some are just more valuable than others.

  Example A: An employee who has a propensity for running a few minutes late, who does just enough to get by, who stops work at the stroke of quitting time, who complains every time there’s a problem, who takes no initiative and is not trustworthy with any kind of responsibility.

  Example B: An employee who is the first one to get there and the last one to leave, who has a “let me do it” attitude, who instead of complaining about a problem takes the initiative to try to solve it, who is willing to shoulder responsibility and has the tenacity to stick with a difficult job until it’s finished.