My American Dream isn't always Pretty

My income was cut in half yesterday. I was in shock and think I still am. Has this ever happened to any of you? Takes the wind right out my sails a little. If I dwell on it long enough it takes the wind out of my sails a lot. My ship is stopped. Should I give up? Or should I keep going? The hero in me says, "Keep going Cody!" The coward in me says, "Give up Cody!" Is it easier to keep going or to give up? By giving up I play it safe right? By pushing forward I play the fool.

For those of you following my story, I set out to record a song I wrote called "Are There Any Americans in the Crowd?" a few months back. The recording was a success and now I'm just laying the groundwork for a release in January. I have this idea that this song is meant to be heard right now in our country. It's not just an idea, but a feeling inside my heart. I work in the oilfields of North Dakota and I don't get to see my wife and kids as much as I'd like. The pull toward promoting this song is so strong that a few months back when I had the chance to go home I literally came to a crossroads.

It was at a junction where highway 8 and highway 23 meet between Parshall and New Town, North Dakota. As I rolled up to the stop sign my heart started racing. I felt myself strongly desirous to turn right. Turning right would mean that a loving wife and 4 wonderful children would greet me after a 1,000 mile drive to Utah. Turning left would mean a lonely 1500 mile drive to Nashville. My mind filled with patriotic thoughts of America. A responsibility and duty to my country turned my steering wheel to the left. Turning left also meant that I would spend thousands of dollars on recording a song that people might not like. Of course I want to believe that people will love it, but sometimes my doubts get the best of me.

I drove about 2-1/2 hours before I realized that my transmission was stuck in 3rd gear. It wouldn't go into overdrive. This was discouraging, because now my 21 hour drive would take even longer, because I would only be able to go about 55mph instead of 80. If I pushed the rpms too high for too long I would burn up my motor. I stopped at a transmission repair shop and they said they were 2 weeks out from being able to work on it. I topped off the tranny fluid and drove on. I began to feel discouraged. Maybe I should've turned right. What's the point of trying to get a stupid song out into the world when my world was at home in Utah with my wife and kids? A dream can be a really lonely thing sometimes.

I drove through Minnesota and Wisconsin wondering if I was doing the right thing. I had a rough recording of the song on my phone and listened to it over and over again through my headphones to keep my morale up. I would've plugged it into my car stereo, but my car is over 20 years old and didn't have a USB port. My mom owned the car before me and its on its second engine with over 380,000 miles on the odometer. I think the transmission is original and probably the reason for it getting stuck in 3rd. Anyway, I was somewhere outside of either Minneapolis or Chicago when something happened that struck me to my core.

I was going through a jumbled mess of inner-city over passes and under passes when I looked up briefly to see a woman standing behind chain link fencing surrounded with and holding signs that said things like Never Forget and Remember 9/11. Tears instantly came to my eyes. I had lost all track of time working in the oil field and didn't even realize the date. It was Sept. 11th 2015. An overwhelming sense of duty and obligation filled my soul. My determination to do my part in honoring and standing up for everything that America stands for hit my heart. I was totally caught off guard by the power of patriotism that hit me in that moment. I continued onto Nashville with a new resolve and the song was recorded in just a couple days.

I then pointed my car west and drove 1700 miles home. I discovered that in the early morning when my transmission was cool I could get it to shift into overdrive and travel 80 mph. After it heated up it would stay in overdrive until I came to a stop. The first stop of the day came in Kansas when I had to stop at a toll booth. Then I was stuck in 3rd again. It's been a while now since I made that trip. I'm still working in North Dakota and trying to get things ready for the song release in January. I hope I am able to present the song to as many people as I possibly can in as many ways as I can prepare.

I've got a radio station in Utah that will play it. I'm hoping to shoot a music video in the next week or so for the song. I'm working on a website too where people can join me as I try to get the song out to the world. This isn't easy. I'd like to invite all of you who have been following my story to make it your own when the time comes. We all have hardships and setbacks. We all have tough choices between going left and going right. Sometime we feel alone on our journeys and wonder if the odds are stacked against us. Keep moving forward America. I don't think it's too late to save our country.

I still believe there are good people in this land who love their country. These are the people I wrote this song for. These are the people I want to invite to make the song their own. For this to work I will need everyones help. I have been blessed to live in so many wonderful parts of our country. I have friends and family throughout the states. I've lived in Nevada, Missouri, Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Massachusetts and Tennessee. As a truck driver I have driven through most of the 48 states. I have seen where Americans live. I have seen our industry. I have seen our communities. One night I came through a little town in Texas that was filled with the American spirit of small town America. I parked my rig in an empty lot and walk down to the town square. I read the bronze plaques around the square. There was a gazebo and bronze sculptures throughout the town.

I don't remember everything I read there, but I remember the spirit I felt. There were businesses around the block and I looked at their displays through the windows. I took in the smells and warm air of Texas that night. I don't remember the name of the town, but there are hundreds of thousands of them all across the country. Our ancestors and ourselves have worked too hard to let all of this slip away into chaos. Let us hold our ground and maintain our convictions about our love of country and duty to support and defend her from evil and corruption wherever it might be.

How To Start A Movement

What country are we building and saving for our children? This is a picture of my grandfather Robert Woodley and my daughter Angelina Sorensen. My grandpa died in 1991 and she was born in 2015. He fought in WWII...I pray she will never know war, but it's highly unlikely given the path we are on as a nation.

There is a lot going on right now in the world. With all of the busyness, how are we going to save America for our kids? We all want to live normal lives filled with opportunity and peace right? Many of us are striving for this right now, but there is a restlessness within everyone I talk to about something being amiss. Something is terribly wrong. Many of us try to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the problems, but the noise is growing louder. We can't ignore our duty any longer.

The populations of the earth are shifting. There are those who are destroying and those who are fighting the destroyers. Most are running away. These refugees are seeking safety from the storm, but are having a hard time finding it. We have those in the middle east who are heading into Europe and those in central and south America who are heading for the United States. They are seeking the blessings of the promised land where there is milk and honey for all. We are the ones who already live in the land of milk and honey, but what are we doing to protect and preserve it?

We are the ones who have been blessed by a strong military to keep us safe so that we might enjoy the prosperity and enterprise of a free people. We have education, homes, transportation, grocery stores, retail stores, movie theaters, restaurants, running water, wash machines, dryers, air-conditioning, electricity to run our electronics and lightbulbs, hot showers, carpet and hardwood flooring, heating, refrigeration, dish washers, beds, couches, chairs, tables, clothing, shoes, fast food, homemade food, conveniently packaged meats, cheeses, crackers, cereals, candies, milk, chocolate milk, juices of all kinds, vegetables and fruits even when they are out of season.

The blessings are too many to name! I lived in Colombia and they had many of these same blessings, conveniences and amenities, but not like we have in the USA. We can no longer take these things for granted my friends. We can longer ignore the corruption in our three branches of government, in big business, banks and special interest groups and agencies. This is the land of the American dream, but that dream is getting harder and harder to achieve as these big groups seek control and domination by combining and conspiring together against the little man. They fail to see what we need to begin to see. They wouldn't exist without us and cannot exist without us. They need our hard work and our hard earned money to survive.

We have the power! We must first pull back and take a good look at the truth of our predicament. For us to continue to preserve the blessings of liberty and all of the freedoms that come along with that liberty we must turn off the distractions that have been numbing our minds for the past 70 years. We must return to the chopping block of law and order and pull down the high and mighty who no longer hear us. The wheeling and dealing that is going on behind the backs of the American people must stop! It is time for us to stand up and fight!

Let me explain: There is only one thing that we have that big government, big business and special interests understand. The Boycott! They say that over 100 million Americans aren't working and that the other 200 million are footing the bill. Well, what should we do? Are we going to just keep plugging along sending 30% of our paycheck down the gutter or are we going to boycott this inequality? The working man is done footing the bill for the lazy man. We all need to stop paying our taxes until the holes in our ships are mended.

Our tax dollars are going to planned parenthood to help pay for the murder of future Americans!? Our tax dollars are going to the illegal aliens who are living on the welfare safety nets that were meant to help Americans get back on their feet. Our tax dollars are filling big government bloated budgets that are being divvied up among unproductive government employees as wages, free healthcare and pension plans. Where is the working mans pension plan? Our tax dollars are being used to bail out big business and banks that have no business getting our hard earned money. These business didn't manage their budgets properly and they should have been allowed to fail, but the big government forced our hand. All of the shareholders got rich! All of the the chief officers got rich! What did the American people get? More mediocrity in service and crap innovation in products.

Boycott all businesses and banks that unconstitutionally stole our tax dollars. Boycott all of the leadership that voted for these bailouts. Close your accounts at these banks and stop buying goods and services from these businesses. This is really the only way we can start a movement. We can't wait until it all comes crashing down America! If the American people fail at saving this nation then there will be no place for refuge. If everybody else in the world is running here, then where are we gonna run when the lights go out?