IF you keep refusing to hire people in their 40s & 50s, what will happen?

I know the economy is bad, but times are even worse for middle-aged people, since there's SO much age discrimination occurring now.

You know, when I was in my early 20s, that was NOT considered a desirable age to hire people at. Employers wanted people with EXPERIENCE, not some greenhorn, with no wrinkles or grey hair at all!

Not so now! Especially in Asheville! I rarely, if ever see any people, even in their late 30s, hired at any retail stores, or companies or anything. It makes me wonder just where the people of that age are actually getting jobs, if they are getting ANY jobs! And so many of the younger people in their teens & 20s are just so rude and disrespectful to customers nowadays.

And you know, you can only live so long on unemployment benefits, that is, if you even have ANY!

Even stores in which I really like what they are selling, lately, oftentimes, I will decide just NOT buy anything cuz some young clerk has been such a jerk to me in there, I don't want to buy anything after I spent hours picking out stuff I'd LIKE to buy!

Like tonite I went into this bookstore that has all sorts of great books and records in it, and found a bunch of books I was thinking I should buy, but after this young female clerk kept giving me dirty looks as I was looking through the books, I decided NOT to buy ANYTHING!

The books were really NOT expensive.... and I could of really used some of them, but just her hateful attitude made me decide to NOT spend a DIME in there! Sometimes I think I need to get these type of clerk's names and let the company KNOW they are driving customers away!

And that was so NOT right or allowed in my day.. The customer was ALWAYS right, and you ALWAYS showed respect to them, whether they bought something or not! Because you never know when someone might decide to shell out a big wad of money in your store, just cuz they feel like shopping! :)

Which made me stop & think how this economy and all this discrimination against older workers is going to affect our society? I think pretty soon, it's going to cause scores of older workers to be driven into poverty, to become homeless and living in their cars, or WORSE, to just die off! Then you are going to have a massive gap in the population, and the more older, experienced workers are not even going to be around in large numbers!

Which is a shame! You can always learn things from people older than you! I love to talk to people who grew up in the Depression or went through WWII, or even the Korean War, it's interesting, it's insightful, and you get a different prospective on things, than if you just hung out with your own age group.

I know, in my case, all my friends and me were the youngest kids in the family, and so... all our brothers & sisters were older than us. It made me have an appreciation for older people and taught me respect for my elders. Our brothers & sisters would NOT put up with the bullshit, we older people are now expected to deal with from these young, snarky acting youngsters, that's for sure!

It's sad, really, cuz it seems the younger generation has very little, if ANY respect for people older than them nowadays! Of course, that's not true of ALL younger people. I occassionally meet some nice younger kids who are fun to talk to, and polite and nice to deal with. But that is not a rule, lately, it's an exception, and that makes me sad.

Well, I don't know about you, but even these younger "celebrities" don't seem to have much respect for the older celebrities, even The Who. That fat black woman, Sherri, who hosts on The View, remarked that she didn't even KNOW who The Who was, after they appeared on a Superbowl TV commercial!

You gotta be kidding me!!! But it sure made her sounds so ignorant. Yeah... I'm not real familiar with Chuck Berry's music, but at least I know who he is! She made it seem like she was so HIP to NOT know who The Who was! That's crazy... you consider how empty and full of crap so much of today's music is, and how creative and so full of originality the music of the 60s, 70s, & 80s were that I have to just shake my head! :(

Okay... that's my blog for now... take care.... Look up to your elders.... One day, hopefully, you'll be an elder too! ;)

Wow.. I actually met some nice ppl in Buncombe Co yesterday!

There are times when things surprise you.

I had to go visit a friend of mine yesterday and travelled to the far end of the county to do so. I had to stop to get directions since I was getting lost.

I pulled into this convenience store and went inside. When I came out there was a big truck blocking my view to back out of the parking lot. However, this rather nice looking guy who owned the truck was nice enough to help direct me out of the parking lot so I would not get hit by traffic! How unusual that would be for behavior in Asheville! Totally unusual! Usually the drivers literally try to run you over once you leave your car in the parking lots!

Wow! There's still manners SOMEWHERE in Buncombe County... though it sure ain't in Asheville no more! ;(

Anyway... I kept travelling down the road and was still having problems finding my friend's road, so I stopped in this club one of my friends tells me is GREAT for Karaoke! I just walked inside since it said it was a private club! Seems okay... even at 2 pm there were people inside playing pool, talking, so it must be a popular spot.

As I was leaving this guy had pulled up in his pickup truck, yeah.. people STILL drive pickup trucks in B. Co.. Yahoo, :) and I asked him how much the membership was? He replied less than $4, which is fantastic! Then he asked me if I'd like a drink! :)

Wow.. do you know that even in the nighttime hours in a Asheville nightclub there are seldom EVERY any GUYS who offer to buy you a drink!! Uggh.. : (

They are just too cheap! I even went one time to meet a male friend of mine, (we are just platonic friends) and he wouldn't even buy me an iced tea! He said he didn't have enough money, though he had bought HIMSELF a beer! Geez... Louise, that sure makes a girl feel good.... NOT! LOL

Anyway.. i was just amazed I could STILL find decent and pleasant, polite people in this county! I need to get the Fuck out of Arseville! This place is enough to drive someone up a wall!

On the way home I even found a hardware store that had some great buys for outside stuff! We had a bunch of colourful birds out in our yard, yesterday when we got home... Bluebird, even goldfinches! I've NEVER seen a goldfinch in my yard ever! Usually you have to get special food to entice them to come into your yard, but there were about half a dozen of them, along with the bluebirds! It was SWEET!

I decided to get some bird seed to further attract them and the hardware store had a great buy on the bird seed, along with those heavy duty dog stakes, which was only $6!

$6 for a heavy duty dog stake is a GREAT buy! those things are usually at least $10 in the pet stores!

They got this movement in Asheville to force dog owners to NEVER tie out their dogs in their own yard! That's bullshit! My dog has a right to go outside, and if you think I'm going to go out in the dead of night when it's 19 degrees out and our power might go out the next day, or fall on my face and break my neck on the icy ground, you're out of your flipping minds!

Besides, what about the eldery, the disabled, or someone who cannot easily get outside? Are THEY expected to WALK their dogs in the dead of winter, when you ALLOW stupid people to literally FEED wild animals ALL winter long North Carolina wildlife? Even bears, or wild bucks?

Cuz you are sure intend it seems to put people's lives at risk and ruin pets live too! Dogs NEED to go outside!

All these stupid people who put CLOTHES on their dogs and take them to the Dog groomer, like they are human beings, not ANIMALS are fucking fools! I cannot stand these type of folks.

Sure, I don't want to see a dog chained out for LIFE in horrible weather without proper shelter, but it's NOT cruel to leave your dog our for a few hours to get some air/exercise, let them go to the bathroom!

Would YOU like to wait 8 whole HOURS to have to go to the bathroom, when your owner got home from work???

These are probably the same damn people who expect EVERYONE to spayed their dogs, whether the dogs are kept in their yards or have pedigreeds or not!

Pretty soon, there won't even BE any puppy to adopt! You've seen to it, MOST of the dog population are castrated or nuetered! I've even seen puppies and kittens spayed below the age of 3 months!

Would you want YOUR son or daughter have their genitals altered at 5 years old??? I doubt it!

It makes the animals fat before their time too...

Anyway... I stopped in one of the stupid dog grooming shops to see what they had to offer and asked about that stupid dog chain law and they claimed it WAS in effect, but I doubt it is.......

I replied it was a STUPID law but that's a place that has DRESSES for dogs, so YOU go figure! ROTFLOL :0

Your animal control officers SUCK in this town! I have even heard one woman saying she saw a Asheville police woman who had her dog running LOOSE in town and wouldn't put it on a leash, even though THAT is illegal! The dog was harassing the woman's dog too, and putting her in danger! Nice going Asheville.. another CORRUPT police officer in our midst! :(

What a fucked up town Asheville is! You can INSIST someone MUST put up a thousand dollar fence in the town of Asheville, but your own officers cannot even follow a simple leash law. How corrupt can you possibly be?

There are still a FEW nice locals left in Asheville, Woohoo

Oh my god, there are still a few nice locals in Asheville.

I was done getting my car done and decided to go shopping. I went into this store. Well, it's been there for awhile but won't be there much longer.

While I was in there there were two older ladies talking story to each other. They worked there. At first i was paying no attention to what they were gabbing about for the most part, but then it starts to peak my interest

They were talking about how men cheat on women and they started to talk about all the crap that the wives of Tiger Woods and John Edwards was going thru. I had some friends who's spouses cheated on them, and seeing their pain, makes me NOT want to ever endorse that sort of behavior.

Well, we started talking about all sorts of other stuff, and one lady mentioned her older brother thought this town was going to the dogs too, and then they mentioned all these clubs I did not even know about that existed awhile ago... they sounded GREAT!

But then I mentioned how very few good clubs if any, now exist and we all agreed! It's become a big of a weirdo's haven in this town.... imho... But about 10-15 years ago, we had the BEST clubs to go out to...

There was COWBOY'S over on Tunnel Road... I even saw a bunch of famous country western stars there... Sammy Kershaw was one of them, and so many other places I could mention I used to have a GREAT time at!

They both admitted their family members also went out these clubs like every weekend.....

The Cowboy's used to be a private club.. you paid like $25 for a year's membership and then didn't have to pay EACH time you entered the club! That was good.

I literally hate these damn clubs where you pay $5-$10 every time you step thru the door and they act like you are a bag lady or something if you decided you don't WANT to enter their club and pay a $5er or $10er, just to get inside!

Sorry, The Garage, but there are times your music or atmosphere is just not that great, and I don't want to pay money up front just to go inside and waste what I could spend on groceries, or a 6 pack of beer, or even a beer or two at another club.

But it was fun to discuss all this stuff with those two ladies, and I realized, I really miss meeting those type of people. People who you don't even know and can have a long-winded conversation about all kinds of stuff, and when you are done, you feel like you made some new friends.

You see, that's what Asheville USED to ALWAYS be like.. Prettty friendly down-to-earth people.... they were not rich or anything or carried on airs like 95% of the people I meet nowadays in this town. They were nice folks here in Asheville a long time ago.. well, maybe NOT that long ago.... but they are few & far between now.

I went into another store after that.. it had crafts.. I remember going into the little shop down in the Village that has all this all these neat Thomas Kinkade paintings and some Kinkade crafts like music boxes, wreaths, even nite lights! The night lights were NEAT! And they were only $15 to boot too! Not bad for a beautiful miniature of one of Kinkake's paintings, who's world-famous!

Anyway.. this guy brought in all these "flowers" made out of cat food can lids! I'm not sure I found them really "attractive", maybe they were interesting, but he also had night lights he made.. though they were not made out of glass, like Thomas Kinkade's were, they were paper mache! I bet they were AT LEAST $15 though! The stuff in that shop is NOT cheap!

He seemed a bit full of himself, to be honest, I felt stupid after he walked in there, but I graduated with a Degree in Fine Arts, & I am an artist, so I don't know WHY I have to be made to feel inferior as an artist, to a guy who makes flowers out of cat food lids! Rotflol.... but that's Asheville for ya now!

That's my point! All these half-arses "artists" and musicians who think they are god's gift to mankind!

It's funny, cuz I've played music with people who actually played in symphonies and actually made a living as a musician, but then I've played music with people who just did it for a hobby here in Asheville, and the Asheville musicians ALWAYS thought they were better than everyone else!

The guy who played for a symphony NEVER made us feel inferior as musicians....ever! He was fun to play with!

Asheville used to be filled with nice folks, but no more... I think maybe, all the nice folks just stay HOME now.. cuz like me, they're tired of being mistreated when they go out in public!

Well, it was nice to meet some friendly people for a change! I'm kinda sad they are not staying in business, but that's how many of the businesses in town are going...... there's not enough business to keep them in business!

That's sad.. but when I think of the businesses that are doing well...... The Orange Peel, Green Life, it also makes me sad, as so many times I've gone into their businesses & stores and have not been treated well!