EDIMGIAFAD

 EDIMGIAFAD stands for "Everyday in Middle Georgia is Armed Forces Appreciation Day. The military and federal government have acronyms galore. This acronym was coined by Dr. Dan Callahan

My home town is Warner Robins, GA. My home was probably about 2 miles from Robins Air Force Base. In the evening when we heard some one firing up the jet engines, my mother said it was my dad. My dad was an airplane mechanic as well as a car mechanic. Racing an engine is part and parcel of that profession. Dad told a story one time about a Captain being unsure of a plane. My dad got him to tell him about it and it had to do with the tires. Dad had the tires changed on the plane. It fixed the problem.

They had some fire out on the base late one evening. My dad called everyone he needed to contact to get the situation taken care of. After the emergency was over, one man came to see this man who  was in charge. He did a fine job. It was my dad. One of the rank and file airplane mechanics.

Yes, I have felt a lot of pride over my dad. As a kid, I thought he just did not understand the world. lol, How many of you had those dads you thought you were helping? I remember giving my dad a lecture about not sneezing so loud as a teenager. Right, I grew up to sneeze loud enough to wake the dead. My dad had blue eyes that twinkled when he smiled. I can see his eyes twinkling when I gave him that stern lecture. 

My dad always worked the evening shift. It paid a little more and there weren't so many bosses around. Dad had one boss who wanted cargo planes loaded from the right to the left. This boss left during the night and the next boss that came on close to daybreak wanted everything loaded from the left to the right. Dad said they paid attention to who was there and loaded the plane like they wanted it.  . 

Robins Air Force Base brought the middle class to Central Georgia. The jobs were well paid by local standards and the benefit package was excellent. It wasn't until I left home that I learned many did not grow up in houses with running water and bathrooms. I had thought that was a pre World War II, depression era thing. 

Even today, there are islands of good economy amongst the poverty of Georgia. Reconstruction did not begin in earnest until after World War II and the advent of air conditioning. One problem in Georgia is you would have families that owned much of the land and businesse. Everyone else was a hard scrabble farmer, mill worker or laborer who lived on low wages. If you live in the metro Atlanta, Columbus area or near a military installation, there are better paying jobs. Move one county over from these areas, the wages are low. 

When there is a recession, you have to go to Atlanta to get a job or at least that is what my older brother and I did. I worked in the Atlanta area for 19 years. My older brother worked for a little over 20 and it made a \huge difference for him. He worked at Custom Building Products until it was sold out. Except for the concrete dust, he had a good job which required a lot of mandatory overtime. Too much overtime in my opinion. 

Being a boomer with depression era parents, I was raised with the opinion of get a job, don't quit, just stick with it come hell or high water. It's funny as you get older how those opinions guide your life for good or bad. The good for me was I could retire at 51 with 30 years and move on to do the most important part of my life which was being a caregiver. The bad part was I had a job that stifled a lot of my creative life out of me. 

It was a shock to me when I first started writing that what some of my opinions were. One reason I think in the States we have gone so bananas with politics is that all of us boomers have slowed down and started having opinions. I was as obnoxious as everyone else. Except, I decided to not talk or write about politics. It was hard at first. I still get cracked up by people trying to slip a little politics into a conversation. We have become hopeless.

But never fear, I've gone for beer. That was one of my teetotaling dad's oft used phrases. 

And when someone gets real obnoxious talking politics. Just think EDIMGIAFAD. Then try to remember what the words are and thank Dr. Dan Callahan.