Guys in a pizza place

I went to Randy's Pizza on Miami Boulevard to get a slice today. They messed up my order, so I had to stand around for a couple of minutes while they fixed it. As usual, the place was largely full, and 95% full of guys. Guys in denim, guys in khaki, guys in flannel, no guys in suits. In other words, regular guys, not fancy guys.

Now, I'm sure they were more educated than most. Probably the incidence of advanced degrees in that room was much higher than in your average group of 80 guys around America or the world. But they weren't all Ivy-educated PhDs in frickin Russian Literature or something equally useless. I'll bet there were a lot of MS in Engineering from NC State or Virginia Tech kinda guys. I.e. degrees attainable by normal people who figure out something practical to study and apply themselves to achieving a goal.

And my point is (as I'm sure you were wondering) -- I think these guys were regular guys who had worked hard to get their educations and did pretty well, but they didn't come from silver spoon backgrounds. They got the kind of education anybody could get if they applied themselves and figured out a way to move towards educational and career opportunity, be they from a county red or blue. So why on God's green earth are we bending over backwards to keep dangerous, boring and soul-sucking manufacturing jobs in rural counties when we should be focusing on moving people towards where jobs are and getting them better jobs and better lives? That's my point.