Drive Fast and Live Free
“You don’t look a day over fast cars and freedom.”
Rascal Flatts – Fast Cars and Freedom
When one is a Member of Congress, you sign a lot of things. Letters responding to constituent requests; Letters asking for campaign contributions; thank you letters; constituent newsletters and all manner of things not to mention the electronic communications that probably dominate correspondence today.
Because of my innate desire to do most everything a little differently, I decided that I needed a tagline with which to sign all of these communications. I had already dropped the “sincerely” or “yours truly” in favor of the 19th century sign-off, “I remain respectfully”. But I needed and wanted more.
So, I adopted the “slogan”, if you will, “drive fast and live free”. I felt then and still feel that it is a short encapsulation of my approach towards life.
The “drive fast” part is appropriate in part because I am a “car guy”. I was in the “car business” for 25 years and in the over two decades since, cars and car collecting have been my primary hobby. I do own some very fast and high horsepower cars. But “drive fast” is also a metaphor for living an active and ambitious life. I don’t use the word “ambitious” in the modern context of rising up a financial or vocational ladder. I mean it in the sense that one lives life with intention, whatever your intentions may be, and that you pursue them and act on them without fear. When you drive fast, you are going somewhere, and you are focused on the task at hand.
The “live free” part probably speaks for itself. To me, it is an essential part of the promise of America to have the ability and indeed the option to be free to live your life as you want to live it. I remember Harry Truman. No, not the president. This Harry Truman was a WWI veteran, a small businessman, bootlegger and prospector who lived the life he wanted to live on the side of Mount St. Helens. In 1980 the volcano was about to blow. He refused to move. The “authorities” were livid, and many wanted to force him out or capture him and remove him. In the end, he stayed and was never heard from again after the eruption buried his house under many feet of lava. Harry Truman lived as he wanted to live and died as he chose to die. America let him do that. And it should let you do that too.
When I was in Congress, I had a few haters who followed me. Another subject – I have never understood why one follows someone they despise just so they can tell them how much they hate them. These people must live miserable lives. Anyway, these haters chastised me for encouraging unsafe driving faster than the speed limit. They also felt that freedom was a bad word and should be replaced with equality, which they saw as more important. I changed nothing. And I won’t. If the reasons are not clear to you now, they will become so the more you read this blog.
I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free