Senseless Spending
The day was overcast and cold. It was a couple of weeks before Christmas, but in those later days of autumn, we had escaped with little snow. Turning into a smaller, manufactured home, we approached an old, worn, tan, and brown Ford Bronco. It was sitting in a gravel driveway dotted with dried, frozen grasses and weeds. On closer inspection, much of the vehicle’s brown was rust with corroded cavities in all parts of the body. The sparse lawn had, long ago, died.
Beyond the vehicle was the meager home. Over the years, its white paint had peeled and blistered. An obvious addition, covered by a single coat of painted waferboard sheeting, held the entrance into the house. A couple of slender tabby cats scampered away as we started toward the steps. The treads had once been painted maroon and handrails were absent.
Loaded down with Christmas gifts and boxes of food, we entered the room. An old, tattered blanket lay at the bottom of the door opening to shield against any biting, wintry winds. With light winds that day, this family was spared any increased cold. Stapled on the outer walls of the room was cardboard fashioned of flattened boxes. This was the room’s lone insulation. Inside was a table scratched beyond recognition of color and at the far end was a dented, white, rusting freezer. The floor was covered by linoleum, the paisley pattern only discernible on its outer edges.
Inside the house were grandparents caring for four boys - the oldest 10, the youngest 4 The grandfather, hunched over, shuffled from another room to greet us - his hunched-over walk strenuous after years of hard, laborious agricultural work. He shook our hands with a smile and an expression of obvious gratitude.
By lifting her faded apron to her eyes the grandmother wiped away tears of appreciation. She spoke no English. Accompanying us however was the Spanish liaison worker from the county school system. She spoke to them – knowing each other, they hugged warmly.
The four boys were wide-eyed with excitement as we laid the food and the gifts on the table. The father of the boys had left the family a couple of years earlier, never to return, and some months before our arrival the mother had committed suicide. Each boy was told to thank us and to shake our hands. They were anxious for us to leave so they could tear open the wrapping of the gifts. Inside they would find an age-appropriate toy. an article of clothing and socks.
This is a poignant but true story from the middle of the United States and carrying into that house a large frozen turkey on top of a box of canned goods, I bear bona fide witness to its sadness. That same day we also discovered three families living in a single trailer home, parents and their respective children each sharing a single small bedroom – yet there are still many more sad tales to tell.
When I arrived home, I started to recount some of the day’s memories to my wife. I didn’t get too far into the account before reaching for the tissue box to wipe away tears of grief for these poor, vulnerable families.
Between the time of harvest and the year’s concluding equipment maintenance and then the planting in the following year, many of these migrant families have no income. Many cannot simply leave to return to their native homeland and homesteads and then make a perilous, sometimes unsuccessful, journey back to the USA. While open borders are detrimental and certainly unconstitutional, in this matter, endorsing employer-controlled and accountable permanent worker visas may be the humane answer.
The type of poverty I describe in this account is abhorrent and abominable - many citizens are in this same condition and circumstance. When one can observe both sides – where one side is impoverished and deprived people while the other, the elitist ruling class spends money on lies like climate change and other absolutely useless, self-centered, inane causes, it is, at times, more than simply disheartening. It’s effectively criminal.