How did we get here?
That’s the question I keep asking myself.
I grew up in the ’60s, and for all that time, and the time before that, America was a place busting at the seams with awesomeness and opportunity. People lined up to get here. This was the place to be.
My first job was at $3.75 an hour. It was a joke not a career move. The fact that so many Americans are seeking lifetime employment and benefits from McDonald’s is something I just don’t understand.
I imagine that 200 years ago America represented nothing more than “free dirt”; if you could get here you could have some. But it came with a price: you had to grow or kill your dinner…not to mention being possibly slaughtered by the natives. I think that environment created a filter for the kind of people that came to this place.
I never understood that until I left New York and headed out west… visiting towns where it was impossible to get a “good” cup of coffee…and the fanciest restaurant in town was Denny’s…savages I thought. While I traveled those endless roads and mind numbing expanses… I fell in love with this country.
I like to imagine that, for many years, America had a sign at the door: No Free Lunch Here. You can come here and do anything — be anything. The caveat is that you get nothing at the door. You are on your own.
Some people still get that, but unfortunately they aren’t born here. They come from Mexico, India, China, The Soviet Union…and so on. They did actually grow up up in a shit-hole…come here… and can’t stop pinching themselves.
Next time you walk into a Korean deli, take a good look the 14 year old ringing up your $6 yogurt… that’s her mom and dad running the place. Maybe they pay her…maybe not. Next time you are getting Chinese take out… take a look at the 4 year old Asian kids sitting at a table…doing homework. They can’t go home because there’s no one there. Everybody is making noodles.
When I find myself taking life for granted I think back to a summer I spent in St. Petersburg. I don’t think you’ve plumbed the depths of collective societal depression until you’ve spent some quality time with the soviets — chain smoking — knocking back shots of warm vodka at 11 o’clock in the morning — staring into the abyss.
I want to say “we’ll be fine”. I wish I could.
