Today

A Thanksgiving Tale

About 10 years ago I was on one of my 1 hour, one way, commutes to work when I began rattling an idea around in my head. “Hey, maybe I could do a podcast!” “But what would I call this podcast if I did start one?” About that very moment, I was approaching a stop sign in the middle of nowhere and hit those grooves in the highway. You know the ones that start about ¼ mile from a stop sign to warn you: “Hey! Wake up! You are in the middle of nowhere and there is a stop sign coming up, and if you do not stop, you just might fly off the highway or get hit by a truck!” The Rumble Strip was born. In my mind anyway.

And then “COVID” happened and I knew… I just knew I had to do “something.” Even if it was just for my own sanity. I felt I just had to speak out. I could no longer remain silent as I watched everything I believed in come crashing down before my very eyes. I was not seeing people drop dead from a bad cold. I was seeing people die inside. The light in their eyes was being systematically turned off. My belief in humanity was destroyed as I observed people willingly giving up almost all their liberty… because someone told them to, in the name of one of the biggest scams in history. I played around with podcasting and writing here on Substack and finally decided that just writing would work because people did not want to listen to what I had to say… but some of them would read my thoughts on digital paper. In just a few months I had, at one time, shot up close to 400 subscribers and I was elated. I believed that if even one person could benefit from what I had to say it would all be worth it. Then, of course, I dared to suggest to people that they be very careful about believing everything… every single promise that proceeded from the mouth of Donald J Trump, and my subscribers quickly dwindled to around 200. Almost overnight. I could not believe it, but I did not give up. I still believe in that one person.

So… here I am.

I woke up at 2am on Thanksgiving Day 2025. This is nothing new for me. I wake up at 2am quite often, and have for much of my adult life. I do not complain about it. Sure, it would be great to “sleep in” if that was possible, but I can only lay in the bed and think of everything I would miss if I did roll around sleeplessly until mid-morning or later.

So… here I am.

Instead of grumbling and complaining about waking up so early, I started to think about all the things that we, in America, still have. The things we, the people, can still do. The power that we, as independent individuals, still possess!

Today:

Most of us woke up! If you are reading this… you woke up. Not just in the physical, but in the spiritual, maybe even political sense.

I whisper “thank you” in my mind as I sit and contemplate writing a post for this blog. Posts have become rare for me compared to the one or two a week I used to pen.

We still have food! Oh, do not get me started on just how bad most of the food is, or how difficult it is for family farms and ranches. How real food freedom has been destroyed because of the consolidation of food production into the hands of just a few giant, destructive corporations who could care less about us, the precious soil, or the animals, birds, and insects that should be thriving on the land they are tilling and filling full of chemicals that seep into everything. The fact is… most of us in America will have food today.

Independence is still possible! Those of us who desire it. Those of us who have just a tiny bit of self-determination and will, can give that spectacular middle finger to “the man” and go our own way. Many of us have found ways to say no by refusing to participate in the engineered division that has been caused by politicians and the so-called government watchdogs, which are, of course, the corporate media and now, to an extent, even the “Mainstream Alternative Media.” Thousands of us are growing a bit of our own food, making our own medicine, exercising some and, more importantly, are no longer asking permission from someone wearing a sewn-on badge and carrying a clipboard before we do something that does not hurt anyone else. We are happily going about our business and not telling a soul when we do something that “might” be “illegal” only because some weird, power-hungry person who got jealous of someone else’s liberty and independence ran for office for the expressed purpose of telling people what they can and cannot do.

We have “health care”! A lot of us have told the Medical Industrial Complex to go to hell. We finally realized that they are in it for the money and are killing for profit. We have chosen to bypass the so-called “Health Insurance” system and are either doctoring ourselves or we are seeing Chiropractors, Naturopaths, Homeopaths, Herbalists, and even Shamans! And we are healthier for it. For today anyway, we were still able to make these choices for ourselves and completely opt-out of yet another evil system that is setup to enrich those at the top while herding the rest of us into a “one size fits all” system that squeezes us through the cattle chute like we are “their human cattle.”

Most of us have a roof! Almost everyone who will read this post have some kind of shelter. It may be a car (like one of my readers lived in for quite a while), a tent, a shack, or a mini-mansion, but the fact is, we are not living on the street. Better yet, today, if we want to, we *can* live on the street if we choose to.

Waiting on the government to “fix” us has become a low priority! Many of us who are part of The Rumble Strip have made up our minds that waiting on government to “fix” freedom, “health care,” the food, the water, the air, the soil, the wars, the taxes, the division, the schools, the “inequality,” the trannies, the illegal immigration, and every other issue that government has it’s twisted gnarly fingers in is, at best, a pipe dream. We decided that, if things were going to change, *we* would have to do it ourselves by, once again, raising a fist of defiance to “the man” and telling them, “You do you,” but I am going to live the way I want to with or without your help. We no longer watch FOX and CNN to find out what we are supposed to do next. We are, with determination and even a bit of defiance, fixing our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, and every other institution that we have become dependent on by simply finding our own solutions. We have started growing our own food and tending the soil. We have ripped our children out of the horrible and dangerous propaganda centers being called “schools” and we are educating them with facts and common sense. We are avoiding government to the greatest extent we can and we are thriving.

Division and partisanship are no longer working! Except for the truly faithful, many of us have decided we are no longer going to participate in the “red team” vs “blue team” scam that has kept us from being able to come together to fight for the common-sense things that most of us all agree about. We no longer look at our “lefty” neighbor and see “blue,” or our “righty” neighbor and see “red,” we look at them with pity at times because of the faith they put into a fake political party, but also as a partner who, if they have not completely lost their minds, desires peace, safety, a roof, and all the things that most of us all want. We have decided that we do not discuss those issues where we disagree and just focus on the things where we can make difference.

Many of us still have family and living relatives! As hard as “they” (the ones who will not leave us alone) tried to destroy our families when they locked down, closed churches, and flung the doors wide open to strip clubs, bars, and Walmart, they have failed miserably. The families that were destroyed are, unfortunately, destroyed. But the ones who made it through. The ones who fought the temptation to hate one another because of differences they were forced to see by one of the most evil and diabolical plans in human history, have become stronger and closer than ever.

Today.

Yes, today we have so much to still be grateful for, don’t we? I mean… as my mom and I say occasionally, “it could be so much worse.” And it could be. And, it more than likely will be.

But not today.

Life is incredibly short and those of us who have been around a while know this more than the younger generation. None of us knows what is going to happen tomorrow, and that is probably a good thing. Focusing on what we have *today* is what really matters. We can face tomorrow: Tomorrow.

So, eat your turkey, or ham, or roast. Watch sports or parades or whatever you have always done on Thanksgiving. Argue at the dinner table about “it would have been so much worse under Kamala” or “the ‘covid’ ‘vaccines’ are ‘safe and effective’” or “trannies need love too” or whatever issue you desire to argue about over a blessed table filled with bounty. Or not. Today we still have the ability and the freedom to do just that. Enjoy every second of it. And then hug and kiss and love on one another as you go your separate ways this evening.

Until next time, this is Rob D, wishing every one of you who have stuck with me for the last five-ish years an incredible Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday. The most non-commercialized holiday in America.

Today anyway.