Huffington Magazine Issue 61 | Page 93

BILL CLARK/ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGES KENTUCKY’S KING grandfather sat in the gray easy chairs in the living room, next to the old grandfather clock and the stereo that never played anything but traditional country and the truest gospel. It was sad, Fred Buckley says, those last moments. He told Wade that the “sky is the limit,” that you could count on a company like John Deere. “You got to go where the work is,” Fred Buckley acknowledges — a sentiment he’d felt when he first commuted to the plant from Tennessee. HUFFINGTON 08.11.13 In Augusta, Wade settled into a duplex close to all the amenities he could ever need. He marvels at John Deere’s resources, at how not every task requires stacks of paperwork. He loves that everything at his job is new. There are opportunities to collaborate, to test, to invent. “You are just free,” he says. “I have options now.” Jason Cherkis is a reporter and researcher for The Huffington Post. Zach Carter is The Huffington Post’s senior political economy reporter. Paul Blumenthal contributed reporting. McConnell walks back to his office after the Senate voted down the Housepassed stopgap spending bill on Sept. 23, 2011.