Yesterday, I needed a tow. A long tow. Requiring me to ride-along to the mechanic in the cab of the tow truck. A very nice tow-truck.
The driver’s name: Doug. A highly energetic fella. Rapid fire talker. Burly. Clean cut. Hispanic-californian / bilingual / native of Long Beach.
Devoted (elaborate bead necklace with crucifix he repeatedly grabbed and kissed, at the end of his many declarations). A good guy Doug. Obviously a helping sort.
Married. Two kids: 14 & 12 – girl / boy. Doug works 3-jobs. According to him, “We’re scraping by.”
His wife works part time. Having lost their house, he pays $1700 a month rent. His biggest worry – his kids, and the negative influence of the internet.
Both kids have i-pads. The day before, his wife found the kids swallowing spoonfuls of cinnamon, to test a fun choking experiment they’d seen on YouTube.
Doug was beside himself with worry over his kid’s internet over exposure. Doug is 43. Me being vastly senior, my child rearing in retrograde (pre YouTube, i-phone, i-pad, i-whatever)
I listened, offering no advice, but the typical “good luck.” Doug is working 3-jobs because his business – the concrete business (?) went the way of the economy and has yet to rebound.
He spoke as though, for him, it wasn’t coming back. Said there’s too much cheap labor, and not enough construction work. I said, well, if construction comes back (it’s starting to) in a big way, the problem will self-correct.
A weak economy self-correcting is the best I could come up with. He asked me my political party. I told him – Democratic. I asked him – Republican.
3-jobs Doug / rented house / 2-kids / wife / said he doesn’t believe in free hand-outs. We didn’t get deeper into politics. I said, it didn’t really matter;
Political party, or religious belief, long as everyone played fair, and looked out for the other guy. The conversation went back to his kids’ intentional choking on spoonfuls of cinnamon, for fun. We agreed that sucked.
Doug is young, and a hard worker. He’s obviously religious (gripping his cross), and worried. And driving a tow truck. I’m glad I met Doug.
He’s good at his job. I wish he had a better job. One with benefits and a retirement plan. I didn’t ask, if he thought those would constitute hand-outs.
A tow-truck with benefits. What a concept.
Beyond choking down cinnamon on youtube, multinational corporate-backed elites have indoctrinated the working poor, through media and internet, to detest the concept of the theoretical non-working poor living the high life through food stamps and unemployment.
Same media-mind-blur goes for the upper middle, convinced their interests are the same as David Koch. Paying taxes means supporting lazy people. Six-figure teachers sauntering down Easy Street. Retired firefighters live like royalty on public pensions.
Quite a racket the elite have going – j.e.
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