Chapter 1, Part 3

After graduating from high school my world and political beliefs began to change. Two specific things happened in my life that pointed me in a new direction. First, I started to pay taxes. You start to scrutinize the person holding the purse strings to your paycheck a lot more, when you stop getting all of your money back at the end of the year. The second thing that happened to me was that I fell in love. During my last semester of high school I began to date a lovely young woman that would eventually become my wife. She too grew up in an upper-middle class conservative home. Unlike myself, who had rejected my right wing upbringing, Renee fully embraced her conservative heritage. Instead of rocking out to Genesis and Bruce Springsteen in her sharp looking Nissan 240SX, she was an avid listener of talk radio and knew that Rush was “always right.” We would have grand debates, I mean dates, where we would discuss various topics of world importance. Slowly I began to be swayed to see her point on many issues. Mostly due to the fact that then and even now I cannot best her in a war of words.