August 7, 2012
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Unmeltable Welfare Cheese
I hadn’t realized how depressed economically my hometown was until I came down here. This visit so far has been a secretly heartbreaking, and gives me just one more incentive to get the hell out of dodge. People are trying to sell crystals (the kind that grow in the ground, not the illegal zombie-making kind, although I suspect a bit of that is going on too) just to make ends meet, and living in houses five or six people at a time. My own parents, who have always been kind of bad with money but have always been able to survive by the skin of their teeth, almost cried when I gave them my stockpile of rice and greenbeans. Any time someone now bitches about welfare queens, I shall soundly punch them in the nose. Everyone’s just trying to survive the best way they can, and people who abuse the system just make the people who are scraping by look like a mockery to the people who are holding the pursestrings. The weird thing is, as bad as I thought my own situation is and was, I’ve never had to do without. I’ve always had means of supporting myself, and ways of saving money, and ways to be resourceful, even if it meant that I was walking everywhere. Then again, I’ve been looking at the past four years as just a waiting place, and I made the sacrifices I made so that I could achieve my dreams. My dreams kept my head above water, and it kept food in my pantry and kept me working and creating and never giving up hope. I’ve never given up hope, even when it seemed hopeless. It just puts a lot of things in perspective for me. But, Jesus H, I still keep looking around and thinking, it’s 1934 all over again… and it’s kind of shattered my entire worldview, of how I thought humans thought. It’s all turned upside down. But, it still doesn’t make the fact that my aunt Lora is pretty much constantly drunk any less disturbing to take. Or the fact that I handed my nephew to her back when he was a week old, not knowing that she was three sheets to the wind, and she made some slurred speech about the fact that he was going to be the only bright spot in everyone’s lives for a while. And, it seems, she was right. All of my unemployed and hopeless neighbors and relatives come over just to play with the little puddinhead (I will introduce the child to Twain once he finally is old enough to look at me incredulously when I call him that) and this little kid, this goofy-faced whispy-haired destructo machine that likes to eat crayons, does seem to inspire hope. He just hasn’t grasped the concept of kicking a ball. Or the fact that stuffed bulls only fly when I throw them to him. But, he’s still new, he has a lot of dirt-throwing years ahead of him.
Comments (12)
How do you transition from random subject to random subject so seamlessly? It’s so impressive. Your writing is like an early “They Might Be Giants” song.
@amateurprose - That’s how my blogging has always been. I don’t start off with one particular subject, I just put whatever my thoughts are at the moment. My personal journal is wayyyyyyyy worse than this.
@angelwingfive - Worse? I love the way you write. That’s what i’m telling you. It’s really, really, good. So, were you better before? Is that what you’re saying?
@amateurprose - When I’m writing in front of an audience, I try to focus a little better. When I’m just writing for me, though, I have no filter. So, it all just becomes a verbal collage, because there are so many things I want to talk about, but no reason to give those thoughts any structure. It’s a phenomenon that pretty much lends itself only to my journaling habits. My regular writing (plays, short stories, etc) are nothing like this. I guess you could say that I’m just tacking up my internal monologue on xanga for others to read, and that it’s maybe just marginally less insane than talking to myself.
It seems as though you’re still close to your family, even though you’ve moved out of town? It also appears as though you and your nephew bring a brightness to their plight.
@Kellsbella - I guess you could say that. I’d never really thought about it that way.
@angelwingfive - I thought I rec’d this post. (I am the official xangan rec. slut, after all.)
“he has a lot of dirt-throwing years ahead of him.” I love this line and the image created. While I am a hell of a lot older than you I nonetheless can relate to the idea of growing up and not realizing my family was impoverished although not to the extent described by you. I’ve been to Hot Springs. Is that your new home or where you grew up. It has been a few years since I was there and I was saddened by how few of the hot springs still open.
@vexations - Hot Springs is 45 miles east of my hometown. I live about 80 miles north of that, in Russellville, and am moving about 700 miles to the northeast of Russellville.
It’s sad to see things for what they really are.
I wish a lot of people in Washington, namely congresspeople, could read your post.
Little Puddinhead sounds like adorable handful! Unbelievable what people are going through these days. There’s really something wrong with the system when people who could work and want to, still can’t earn enough to make ends meet and returning veterans end up so often living on the street. If Roosevelt were still around, I’d be voting for him. He pulled the U.S. out of the Depression with the Jobs Corp he made. It was a really great idea; one we need to see in action again.