The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I was following a Cadillac SUV with a bumper sticker that read: YOU’RE THE REASON YOU’RE SUFFERING. This is bad news indeed for most of us down here on the South End, but at least now we know who to blame for our misfortunes. Although … I don’t think I care for the Winners in the Game of Life telling us Losers we deserve what we got. Some of us sure do. And I’m one. But I don’t ask for favors … or sympathy … or welfare either. I’m not going to make it to the 1% and I’m not gonna work myself to death trying.

But there are folks like Janet down the road, two kids in preschool and daycare, a husband John back from the Oil Wars with one leg and a head bounced too many times in IED explosions who’s pretty much a permanent casualty. She’s trying to hold a job and hold things together too. She’s 24 going on 60 and I seriously doubt she thinks her suffering is on account of her.

Joe the Plumber — and no, not that Joe the Plumber — has meliosomethingorother, the cancer from breathing asbestos when he unknowingly worked with the stuff in his youth. I doubt he’s going to take kindly to a Cadillac bumper sticker that thinks his Attitude must be to blame for his disease.

The rich think the rest of us are lazy, I guess. The 1% think the losers are takers. The corporate boyz think they made it on their own, no help from the education system, no assistance from the government that built the infrastructure, no subsidies or tax credits or loopholes in the law. They got theirs and if it happens to suck up most of yours, well, tough. You coulda done it too. Course, you might have been born black or Hispanic, you might be autistic or handicapped, you might be a single mom or a laid-off worker, you might get sick, you might be discriminated against, you might have been born on the South End.

We all want to believe we’re the captains of our destiny. But the waters we sail are more treacherous for some. It doesn’t take much compassion to pick up survivors in the water from the lifeboat off your yacht. Course, when the time comes we take the yacht away from you, I hope you’ll understand, it’s going to be your fault.

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I got a friend who was bothered that we spent tax payer dollars, HIS tax dollars, to conduct a survey of the island, maybe find out how many people are homeless here in Shangri-La-La. If you think if this bothered him, imagine what his irritation level will be when the next step pops up: funding for shelters or god forbid, small houses. Out here on the Left Coast we have warmer winters than most places back east so homeless folks can survive a bit easier without frostbite or hypothermia. From Seattle and Gomorrah to San Diego, our cities are crowded with people living in their cars, in tents, huddled over heat vents, hiding under freeway overpasses and back alleys, entire families struggling to stay alive in whatever shelter they can scrounge up.

RV’s can be found lining multiple blocks, rusted and busted vehicles that no longer run, without water or power or sewer, without garbage pickup, without most of what the rest of us in the Land of Plenty have in abundance. But … there are those who find no compassion for these American refugees, no sympathy for their plight, no pity for the poor. If my pal is any indication, the best remedy is to keep them out of sight and out of mind and definitely away from his wallet and tax dollars. He believes the ‘homeless situation’ is a hoax, just a ruse to use tax money for bogus bureaucratic bullshit. He asked me if I had ever, ever, known anyone on this island who was homeless. I said of course. Stinky Steve, for one. My heroin addict thief for another. And that was only on the South End. Up north, closer to town, there were plenty more than that.

I’m not on the homeless census count committee. And I doubt it’s epidemic here yet. But on any given day the Food Bank is open, the number of folks seeking handouts is incredible. Most have apartments, I’m betting. Some might even own a house. But there must be plenty who haul their bounty back to a tent or a shed somewhere back in the woods. Why begrudge them these morsels? Why go ballistic over trying to count them and, god forbid, even help them in some small way. We’re not going to build them a 3 story house and buy them a BMW so they can feel like a part of our community. Although maybe if we did, they’d side with my buddy and stop all future funding for those other leeches who want a free ride. Maybe I’ll try that argument on him, see if it works. Cause I want this whining to end. The rich have got to stop complaining!

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