July 18, 2008 12:22PM
By Robert Ray
Americans are not rich, America is rich.
Most of the people live in rural communities, not urban bubbles.
One can drive for 500 miles in America and not hit a city with over 200,000 people.
I set out on a 1500-mile trip this past week. Chicago to Wichita, Kansas and back. My goal was to talk with Middle America, take a pulse, find out if people are changing their lifestyle because of inflated gas, food and a generally slumping economy.
For the most part, most people I meet in this country are nice. They will look a perfect stranger in the eye and answer a question. Most are honest; some embellish and in between one deciphers the truth of it all.
The Midwest is a laboratory for the thought of America.
People in the middle have a full circle of beliefs and opinions representing the entire country. There are little interior motives to the mindset in the heartland, most folks just think it and say it the way they internalize it. I suppose that is why their opinions are so valuable in presidential campaigns. But, more interesting is the economy in the rural region of America.
Rural America is not rich, not fancy and certainly not unaffected by America’s current economy. In fact, possibly more than any other group of people they are being hammered by gas prices and food inflation. And did I mention a surging series of job layoffs in the manufacturing sectors, that’s the icing.
All around America…big, medium and small businesses are treading. Men and women’s salaries are not increasing relative to the price of life.
THE PRICE OF LIFE.
Stunning that there is a price, and even more disturbing is standing in front of a person who you know is hurting…a person who has a family that just can’t find a solution or means to and end for the stress being caused by money. What an insignificant significant word.
I would venture to say that most Americans at least 3 times a month ask themselves “How the hell am I going to make this happen.”
Anyone reading this who thinks I am being negative is not the majority. You are lucky in money, but maybe not in life.
These people you watch that I interviewed are just being honest. Their word is important to deciphering the impact of America’s current economic storm. We all want money but in the end we all just need people.
July 16, 2008 7:00PM
By Robert Ray
The buzz of crickets on the prairie, the whisper of a breeze through my ears and the passing sound of a 40 story turbine cranking revolutions to the velocity of the earth’s wind….indeed, a Kansas wind farm.
We have spent the day with Pete Ferrell, a fourth generation cattle rancher, 7 thousand acres he owns here in southeastern Kansas. Pete’s a tall man, 6’4, slender, wears a cowboy hat, ripped jeans, talks with a strong command of scary western guy voice…made my forehead sweat around the edge of the hairline when we met.
Pete pulled up in front of the Beaumont Hotel on Tuesday night, about 9pm. Dusk had settled the air so his image was silhouette as he slowly cranked open the door on his pick-up truck. “Pete Ferrell, good to see you, I’m Robert Ray.”
“Robert, how are you? Tell me the game plan for tomorrow, I’m a busy rancher and I got too much to take care of”
You see, Cattle Ranchers make New Yorkers look like turtles in creepy parking lot carnival races. Pete gets the damn job done and his time is money. Pete is also a “wind evangelist” of sorts. He has been preaching the gospel of alternative energy in the form of wind power for over a decade.
Some people in these parts hate the sight of the massive white blades hovering over the prairie. Others embrace them and find beauty and hope they make waves in the battle for powering the United States. I sensed both views while in the region. On the side of I35 south were two signs. The first read “Yes to Wind Power,” the second “No, to nuke power.” This really means a lot to this region and you have to realize that the State of Kansas has their Oil Museum right here in the Flint Hills of Southeastern Kansas.
There is one certain in life; wind will never stop unless there is no Planet Earth.
Each wind turbine costs 2 million dollars to construct; not including labor after the structure is set. But, each turbine can power up to 250 homes so the return may exceed the cost.
There is no irony that Pete Ferrell is preaching wind farm gospel to America. After all, windmills were built out here in the American West in the late 19th century to promote development and economic engines…basically, business in the great American West was pushed through wind energy, not whiskey and saloon brawls, although that is the preferable and noted hooligans history of business on the Great Plains. I wish it were true.
At present time only 1 percent of America is powered by wind based mechanisms.
There are nearly 19,000 turbines in action in the United States and 93,000 worldwide.
Pete Ferrell’s ranch has 100.
The United Kingdom has a proposed plan to use offshore wind farms to generate enough power to light every home by 2020.
Cowboy Pete, an American enterpriser and guy who gets the damn job done
