During the late 80’s and early 90’s, I spent five years of my life traveling the country as a stand-up comedian. I had some great gigs where I opened for people like Jerry Seinfeld, Sam Kinnison, Lewis Black and the band Chicago.

I also played some hell holes in small towns where there weren’t more than 8 people in the audience.

I learned a lot during that time. I learned that America is a vast, diverse place. I learned that comedy is very subjective and that jokes that worked in Seattle, Washington, might not get the same response in Mobile, Alabama and vice versa.

I find people fascinating, especially when it comes to elections.

I wish I could say that people make their decisions on who they’re going to vote for based on due diligence and facts. I wish I could say that voters do their research and look at the pros and cons of every candidate before making an informed, logical decision.

I also wish I could say that Santa Claus is real. But we all know that neither of those two things is true.

Donald Trump was on 60 Minutes the day after a lone gunman tried to break through security barriers to have him and/or members of his cabinet killed. In that interview, he praised the police, verbally attacked Nora O’Donnell and mentioned that political violence has always been around.

And he was right. At least about political violence always being around.

I was in second grade when JFK was assassinated. I can still recall Mrs. Cusak’s tears when we heard the news over the intercom.

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you may recall an article I wrote about a month or two ago about how lowering property taxes was not the solution to fix the problem of the stagnant growth in Nebraska. The so-called brain drain.

I wrote about a report funded by an organization called Strengthening Nebraska Families. This report was commissioned by Mike Cassling and Dana Bradford. It focused on how Nebraska needs to do more to bring primary jobs to the state.