Well, hi again. I’ve been laying a bit low these past couple of weeks, trying to figure out which way the winds are blowing and taking Grandpa Seamus’ advice about keeping my butt out of the breeze in the process.
Actually, Seamus himself wasn’t very good at that which is probably why, among other things, he got run out of Ireland after Bolland’s Mill and encouraged everywhere else to "go west, young man, PLEASE go west" until he got to some high mountains that were just as ornery as he was. And neighbours just as colourful. But I’m third generation and it’s been thinned out some. Mostly. Maybe. Okay, you’re not buying that. I digress.
Like some of you, I got laid off back late last summer and the job I had before that lasted five years. I’ve also worked at Boeing. As in a lot of other places right now, even temp work is hard to find in Seattle. I understand why and even though I’m behind in the rent, so does my landlady. I’ve got enough unemployment coming in now to pay the rent, just not enough to catch up.
She also knows I spend a lot more than 40 hours a week trying to get back on the Hit Parade. She and her sister own 17 buildings and a lot of tenants won’t be able to make their rent at all. They’re international, these two, and their native country’s going through what the rest of us are.
I think maybe I’m luckier in some ways because I’ve survived lean times before. When a federal judge up here closed down old growth to protect the spotted owl, I ended up losing a three bedroom mobile and fourteen acres of land. Then I moved into a city of almost a million people where I only knew one. It hasn’t been real glamorous but I have learned how to adjust my outgo to my income. Mostly.
I also grew up with good role models in that regard, as well. I remember one time in the early Fifties when times got lean on the ranch and the weather was favouring the trout. There was a lot of work to do around the place and Seamus wasn’t the most patient person to begin with.
We ended up going out fishing one Sunday morning after church, which was unusual because generally going before was Seamus’ way of getting out of going at all. By the time we got to the ravine where the fishing was best, it was noon. And while I took up position downstream and at the bottom of the ravine, instead of baiting up and casting, Seamus tied a blasting cap to a rock, leaned over and tossed it into the creek.
I got a little wet and the ground shook a bit. But between us, we scooped up enough German Brown and Rainbow to get through most of a winter. He admitted it wasn’t very sporting but it did put food on the table. And he doubted it troubled the trout nearly as much as it apparently still bothered some other folks.
And I’ve been fortunate to live among whole communities who reacted, in spirit if not also in fact, like that too during hard times. Reflecting on it, it seems to me they all had a couple, three things in common.
First, facing common adversity, they put their political, religious, economic and other differences aside. (For the most part.) They admitted, both to themselves and to one another, that they were scared of losing it all and trying desperately to figure out to hang on to at least some of it.
Once the figurative and sometimes literal hugging and crying together was over, they got organised. They looked at needs and resources and got a game plan behind every contribution every single member of their family, neighbourhood and community could make, each in their own way.
I’m talking about the kid who rides their bike delivering papers over nine square miles before school because suddenly two incomes is not enough. And the teenager who spends afternoons bucking hay on their uncle’s ranch because said uncle got hurt in a tractor accident and the mortgage can’t survive a bad harvest.
I’m talking the Iraqi war veteran who sees more hell than any human being should, coming back to a nation in chaos. And the UAW line worker who, for twenty years, busted their butt, sometimes double shifting and working on holidays so their kids could get a college education and not have to work probably the toughest job there is alongside coal mining, commercial fishing, construction, farming, logging, ranching and steel working. (in alphabetical order)
I’m talking the ninety year old great grandparents who survived the Depression, a World War, several protracted conflicts and more than one recession, working to exhaustion and falling asleep praying to the Almighty for the strength and courage to make it so all those they helped bring into this world wouldn’t have to keep on going through it.
I’m also talking the company president who cares about their people and needs to make some tough and lonely decisions that get passed down to the line boss, the foreman, the superintendent, the editor. We’re talking a lot of ‘bosses here. You make the best decision you can in the time you’ve got to make it. But no matter how good or bad the call, it stays with you forever.
These folks I’ve had the privilege of knowing during hard times also didn’t spend a lot of time blaming their elected officials for it. Out here, in the Pacific Northwest, we tend to look at their job as we do our own. Because we’re a region of mostly small communities often isolated in winter, we tend to elect our neighbours.
So we’re on a first name basis with folks like Governor Chris, whose daughter I ran into at the post office the other day, and U.S. Senators Maria and Patti. It sometimes takes things a lot longer to get done here but that’s because our elected officials are taking constituency input. If they don’t do their job, same thing happens to them as happens to us if we don’t do ours.
Perhaps most importantly, these folks who not only survived but came out ahead, saw this as a chance to reinvent and prosper in different ways. They had the daring to consider that just maybe the machine’s breaking down for a reason. And maybe it’s because human beings have been sacrificing their health and sanity far too long for a lifestyle that is toxic to every living species on this planet, including them.
Maybe it’s time to downscale and retool. We’ve been a power-driven society since the dawn of the Industrial Age and in our need for validation, our need to keep up with the Joneses, we’ve laid waste to practically every other people and every other species who sometimes not so quietly suggested there was a better and far more time-tested way. And when it comes right down to it, I don’t think we’ve been real kind to one another, have we, gang?
Well, Grandpa Seamus had a mouth on him and I guess I do too. I’ve got some ideas about how we can not only survive this but come out happier and kinder to one another and the planet. But my voice and that of an unreconstructed Irish rebel who should have been gagged, roped to a chair, stood up against a wall and shot by a British firing squad at the "tender" age of 17, is certainly not near enough. We need to open this blog to input from you, the readership, in these regards.
Granted, there are only a hundred of you now but you’re a very special one hundred. And each of you knows a few more like you. You’re spread out from one end of North America to the other and in the UK and France. You’re a brain trust to be reckoned with and then some. Each and everyone of you.
In short, folks, you rock. So let’s get those cards and letters coming in, gang. (And yep, Judah, that means you can get creative with tofu. Just don’t try to sneak any broccoli or cauliflower in mine.)
Those folks I talked about, who survived hard times and came out ahead? They’re you yahoos.
Folks, we have a chance to make a difference. I’ll look forward to hearing from you. Take care, stay well and God Bless.
Rusty
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