My Retirement

Earlier this week, or maybe late last week, when the heat index was well into the three digit range and I found myself once again sweating beyond my comfort zone, I reached a decision.

I am retiring.

Not from anything that pays. Unfortunately, that happens sometime between 16 years from now and death, hopefully closer to the former than the latter. Like Christmas, that retirement is on the radar but there’s not yet any sense of urgency to it.

Instead, I’m retiring from gardening. I have tilled my last tulip and planted my last petunia.

It’s just not fun any more, I dread the thought of going out to deal with it, so I’m just not going to do it. It’s not like we’ll go hungry or the world will end.

I planted my last tomato plant a few years ago after I figured out that the average cost per tomato approached that of opium. Poppies are easier to grow, anyhow, so it’s not a surprise that the farmers in Afghanistan are making the decisions that they do.

Aside from the fact that the only plants I loathe more than tomatoes are rose bushes and poinsettias, there are trucks parked alongside the road all over the place. I can contribute to the full employment of these hard-working full-time farmers for far less than the cost of getting the grass stains out of my socks.

I have a genetic predisposition toward farming failures. Half of my family comes from that little spot in Oklahoma that’s right by where the panhandle hooks onto the rest of the state. It’s pretty close to the geographic center of the dust bowl of the 1930’s, and for years the best thing it grew was oil wells.

Not very good ones mind you, but just enough to allow the grandparents to keep on farming.

I had a client a few years ago who had lived a hard life, trying to scrabble a living out of rocks and poor soil.  One day, he drove up to my office in a new pickup, wearing clothes that didn't come from Goodwill and a new Stetson hat.  His wife had obviously just had her hair done at the beauty parlor, a treat formerly reserved for children's weddings and Christmas.

"All these years," he said, "we been doin' it the hard way.  You cain't make no money growing wheat or cattle.  The wife and I found out that you make money growing Wal Marts."  It seems that Mr. Sam had a hankerin' to put a new SuperCenter on this couple's little slice of heaven and wasn't afraid to write a check with more digits on it than my client had ever seen before.

He had the sense to cash it in, take the money and run.

My relatives that now own those farms in northwest Oklahoma recognize that now the money is not so much in oil wells, but now is in growing electricity. It looks like they'll be growing those great huge windmills from now on. The problem is, those are set a couple of miles apart and their farms happen to be in the “center median” rather than on the highway.

There’s not much money in medians, nor is there forced pooling as with oil and gas wells so that everyone in the area shares in the production. 

Growing the right crop just doesn't seem to be in my genes.

It’s been an especially hard year for production in North Carolina as well. We lost half of a Yaupon Holly tree next to the driveway to ice last winter, along with some of the “background” shrubs, and then about a month ago my favorite flowering peach tree just shriveled up and died within a few days.

This, after having survived the drought of the last few years, the ice storms, and being relocated in the yard 4 or 5 times before it finally found a home by the driveway.

Add to that the fact that the brutal heat has cooked all of the flowers in pots that go up the back steps and I’ve easily spent $200.00 just filling in the empty spots and nothing is growing to it’s potential – and this is not the first year – well, it’s time to fold it up.

So I’m announcing my retirement from gardening.

No plants will be “overwintered” in the basement ever again. Those on the patio will either be given to other people for adoption or allowed to meet their fate when the cold winds blow.

Of course, those blank spots in the beds have to be addressed. I can’t leave just bare dirt where the flowers were, or we’ll have our own dust bowl going on back there. That means I have to put together a landscape plan for the replacments.

I probably ought to work in some organic matter and till those spots up extra deep, too, and maybe add some of those crystals that help hold the water.

And, oh, wow – there are some stray crocus that are trying to peep through the dirt already. They shouldn’t be there for at least another six weeks. I wonder if I need to mulch those in better, so they won't cook, too?

Now how am I going to protect those from being stomped all over while re-doing the flower beds?

But I'm retiring from gardening.

Really I am.

Just as soon as I spray the roses again.

A Passing of Note

One of the things that provides a particular flavor to a small town are the colorful characters that live in it. As a city grows, you lose track of these people and they tend to blend in, like a glitch in a wallpaper pattern. They provide as much to the demeanor of the town as a quaint downtown or nearby lake.

Hickory lost one of it’s most colorful characters this week, and the city is a little less for it. I’m not going to put her name in here out of respect for her surviving siblings, who reached their exasperation point many, many times over the years, but anyone in Catawba County who’s dealt with the public has a story about her and will know who it is.

This lady wasn’t always plagued by her mental health issues. She had a Masters Degree and ran her own business for several years. Then, at some point, she began living an alternate reality.

She claimed to be the illegitimate love child of Ronald Reagan.

She maintained that she had a sister-in-law who had an identical name to hers and who assumed her identity at times.

Can’t really blame her for that one; we’ve all done things that in retrospect we’d like to blame on our evil twin.

She really began to come to the public’s attention about 1990, when she may have had a job working for the census. It seems the government had leased some empty offices in City Hall to the census workers. There were lots of people working there who were unfamiliar to the “regulars”, so nobody thought much of it when she went into an office, turned on the computer and went to work. It took several days until everyone went through the, “I thought she worked for you,” rounds and figured out that she probably didn’t belong there.

Her theory? It’s a public building. She needed to use an office and computer for, “…important secret government work” she was doing. When she declined to be evicted voluntarily, she was eventually banned from most public buildings without an appointment and an escort.

She liked to pick up stacks of files on people’s desks and take them with her, either to follow up on her conspiracy theories or to "help them out."

There are many times that taking a stack of files off of my desk would help out a lot, but in the long run we all know that’s going to come back to cause even bigger problems.

Her contact wasn’t just limited to government buildings. It seems that she got word that Belk’s Department Store had a new, good looking manager. Being a single woman, she decided that theirs would be a whirlwind romance followed by a story-book wedding. In order to accomplish this, she put on a prized possession that was somewhat unique here in the south – a full length rabbit fur coat.

The coat was famous -- she wore it for many, many years.  Toward the end, if you touched it or brushed against it, clouds of rabbit hair "poofed" off like stringy dandruff.

Under the coat she apparently wore some of Victoria’s Secret’s finest products.

Finding an opportune moment, the Temptress slipped into his office to drape herself across his desk.

She was banned from the mall after that.

As she got older, her illness progressed and led to a number of trips in and out of various mental institutions. Following the path of so many with her condition, she would be institutionalized, get her medication balanced and would improve only to be discharged and spiral downward again.

One thing that was both a curse and a gift was her ability to write. When she was on her meds, she could put together coherent, solid documents. When she wasn’t, they were merely pages and pages of incomprehensible words and phrases with little or no punctuation to give any respite to the reader.

The danger zone, though, was when she was at that tipping point on the way up or down. She could put together a seemingly coherent letter, but her grasp on this plane of existence wasn’t good. It was those letters that caused problems, especially when she actually mailed them.

Letters to federal officials and candidates for political office eventually drew the attention of the Secret Service. They didn’t know her. They made no allowance for her eccentricities, but appropriately kept the focus on their mission of protecting these people.

As a result, election years became something of a tribulation to her. A couple of days before elected officials or candidates for high offices were within driving distance of Hickory secret service agents would show up and give her two options – either put on an ankle bracelet that monitored her location or go into custody.

During the 2008 elections, between Charlotte, Asheville, Winston-Salem and Greensboro, all of which are within that undisclosed parameter, there were dozens of visits by candidates. Her life must have been extremely uncomfortable, especially as her health was declining.

So today’s obituary was kind of bitter-sweet. I hadn’t had any significant contact with her since I left public service, so she had kind of faded into the background of my world. Occasionally, I’d see her at the pharmacy or the grocery store and, whereas she used to try to engage in public confrontations she merely nodded and went on once I explained that I was no longer was in a position to either help or argue with her. I’d occasionally hear the stories, though, that told me she was still on the job.
The reality is, as aggravating as she was at times, when she appeared an otherwise monotonous day had the potential to become memorable and most of the time her antics were harmless.

The obituary in the newspaper belies the life she actually led, reducing 60 years of existence to a mere recitation of the mundane things deemed by those surviving relatives as relevant. In reality, though, her passing makes Hickory a bit less colorful and more like any other exit on the highway, a series of strip malls and fast food restaurants.

I hope that she finds the peace that she deserves, wherever she’s gone.

Elevator Safety

My “to do” list just got one more thing added to it.

It’s not my fault, either. I didn’t break anything or neglect to take care of something.

It’s all because I read an article on the internet – not on any of the rabble-rousing sights, but just on the home page for Charter, our local service provider.

It seems that that the newspaper carrier for Sherwood and Carolyn Wadsworth, 90 and 89 respectively, of St. Simone’s Island, Georgia, noticed that their newspapers were piling up. When a package that’d been delivered the day before wasn’t removed the paper carrier called 911.

When the police broke into the house, at first they didn’t find anything amiss. Even the cat was there.

Then they noticed that the house had an elevator. Most home elevators look like a closet; if you don’t notice the call button, you probably wouldn’t know what it was. When they opened the elevator they found the couple in the car, stuck between floors. They had apparently died of heat exhaustion in the unairconditioned elevator.

There was no telephone in the elevator.

So what does this mean to my “to do” list?

Well, it just so happens that our house has an elevator in it. One that’s a whole lot older than the one in the Wadsorth’s house, I suspect, given the tax values of property on St. Simone’s Island. It has a telephone in it that was added in the early 1980’s, after Mr. Miller found himself trapped in there for several hours. I happened across the guy who installed it after Mr. Miller found himself trapped in there for several hours one day.

So we got a telephone, right? No problems.

Well, except for the fact that like so many other people, we’ve cut the land lines. The phone in the elevator is little more than a wall decoration. It didn’t really matter anyhow, because since we went digital through the cable company before we got rid of the landlines all together, and a digital telephone system is apparently the arch-enemy of a rotary dial phone.

I knew that there needed to be something done even before the newspaper article. A couple of months ago, the kids that help me out and I were moving some stuff down to the basement and I told them to climb on and just ride down.

They were hesitant at first; after all, it doesn’t look anything like an elevator they’ve been on before. There’s a metal collapsible gate that you have to close before you close the door to it. It creaks and makes funny noises when it moves.

For some silly reason, they trusted me and did what I said.

Of course, the elevator immediately got stuck. It hadn’t had any glitches in months, and THIS is the time it chooses to get stuck.

Of course, there’s no phone. My cell phone is on the kitchen counter downstairs, so I can find the darned thing when I need it.

Fortunately, one of the boys had his cell phone in his pocket. We tried to call the guy who lives in the apartment, who’s primary language is Spanish.

Ever try to get “go to the basement and get a screwdriver and bring it to me in the elevator, where we’re stuck” to pass through multiple language filters, not to mention my increasing irritation?

Thankfully, the boys are bilingual. Even then, we had a hard time getting the message across, probably because of vocabulary limitations.

Once we pried the door open a crack and passed the screwdriver through, it was easy enough to take the cover off the little control box and reset it. They’re not complicated, thankfully.

But it drove home the fact that we need a telephone in there. That had slipped off the radar, not at the top of the “gotta do it this weekend” list and the solution was to simply implement a safety rule – don’t ride the elevator unless you have your cell phone in your pocket.

It’s too easy to slip, though, and the article about the Wadsworths have driven home the need to address this particular safety issue. So we’ll be figuring out a solution, probably just wiring my office phone into that system so it’ll work in the elevator.

It’s just another thing on my “to do” list.

Waterdogging

Well, this morning we had it.

Our first throw down, ring-tailed, screamin’, bitin’ puppy temper tantrum.

That’s the only way to describe it. I suspect it’s in part because our little boy is becoming more of an adolescent. At his trip to the vet Wednesday he’d doubled in size, from 5 pounds 11 oz to 9 pounds 9 oz. When you go for a “walk” and it ends up being a “carry”, you notice that difference after a couple of blocks.

In addition to size, there’s a suspicion of hormonal changes. He now barks at strangers, sudden noises or anything else out of the ordinary to show he’s “guarding” for us, doesn’t come as quickly when you call him and has threatened to run into the street, meaning that he’s now confined to a leash whenever he’s outdoors, even just to do his business in the back yard.

We suspect he's surfing inappropriate sites on the internet, smoking cigarettes and experimenting with alcohol as well, but no parent ever knows for sure whether that's happening or not.  You just make rules, watch for signs and hope for the best.

This morning it all came to a head, though. I’d taken just about everything he touched away because he wasn’t supposed to be chewing on it. He was both under my feet and had seemingly disappeared at the same time, meaning I had to hunt him down.

He attacked my slippers. Plucked underwear from the laundry basket. Tried to turn over the trash can and chewed on file folders sitting on the floor by my desk.

Deciding we needed a break, we took the dry cleaning up the street about two blocks. He likes this trip, because he gets a treat from the girls that work there. It’s also our chance to work on his “riding” skills.

My rule is that if the dog isn’t seat belted in, he rides in the floorboard on the passenger side of the car. We haven’t found a collar and seatbelt leash that work yet, just because he isn’t quite big enough. For any big trips, he’d ride in a crate. I want him to learn where to ride when he’s not chained down, though.

You’da thunk that I had stepped on his head with all the growling and biting and barking that went on. I’m not sure what triggered it – I took a stale French fry he’d discovered away right before the fit, but that’s happened lots of times before.

Anyone who’s ever ridden in my truck will not be surprised to learn that there are stale French fries to be discovered. At times there have been jelly beans, skittles, potato chips and an assortment of other unhealthy food choices. It’s a truck. Get over it.

So he’s in his assigned seat when he decides that he can, in fact, help with the driving. When he gets pushed back to the floorboard, suddenly a Tazmanian Devil comes out and he starts barking and snarling and chewing and biting on everything he can reach.

Straw wrappers (which seem to migrate under that seat), phone cords, and anything else that lives in the center console. I’d take something away, he’d throw a whirling fit, barking and whining, and look for something else.

Fortunately, the trip is less than 2 blocks each direction.

When we get back home, it’s obvious that the temperatures and humidity have taken their toll on the flowers, so everything needs a drink. El Doggo Importante has the chance to wander around a little bit with me while I take care of this.

Except he won’t. He wants to run off where I can’t see him, won’t stay on the grass and is generally being a pill. Every attempt at correction results in another attack, with him jumping at me and trying to growl and bite.

Mind you, if he weren’t small enough to squish I might be a bit worried. The David and Goliath relationship, though, keeps me from being terribly afraid. I really didn’t want to smack him either, although I’m not above that. A gentle rap with a wooden spoon works wonders for instilling appropriate behavior levels in both children and animals. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a wooden spoon.

So I finally followed a time-honored treatment that my grandmother used to use, creatively involving whatever tools happened to be at hand.

I hosed him.

In Grandma’s case, it wasn’t a matter of being bigger. She was tiny. It was just that she had control of the hose, not to mention the undying respect of those around her. She also had a sense of humor that meant that any kid or dog that got within firing range was likely to get squirted at least a little bit whether they were misbehaving or not. It kept you on your toes.

I suspect if the preacher were there when she was watering her plants and gave her any lip, she’d likely have hosed him down as well.

As usual, it worked. We’re not talking waterboarding but I soaked him well enough for him to realize that I was bigger and I wasn’t pleased with his actions. Just like with us kids growing up, the reaction was immediate, the tantrum stopped and he was nonetheworse for the wear aside from a bit of sputtering and a shocked look on his face.

By the time I finished watering the plants, he’d all but forgotten about it and was ready to go in and get his cookie.

But the tantrum had stopped and he was a lot more docile than he’d been earlier, and he knows that he isn’t the Alpha Male.

iPhones and Duct Tape

I admit, I am giggling just a tiny little bit.

You see, everyone at our house has coveted the iPhone 4 (not to mention numbers 1 through 3) since they were introduced. Here’s a gadget that can take the place of several other do-hickeys that currently get toted around different places. It’s a phone, a mini-computer to deal with your office stuff, and an mp3 player to let me listen to NPR on the radio or whatever book happens to be holding my interest at the time.

That’s three things out of my pocket or backpack. I’m likin’ that already, even before we start talking about the cool applications that are available only on the iPhone.

The problem is, we are with a different cell phone service provider, so the iPhone isn’t an option for us (yet!). They offer Blackberries and Palms and a variety of different telephonish gizmos, but none have the panache and flexibility of the iPhone.

Until this version, none apparently worked as well, either. “Separate but equal” doesn’t work in this arena any better than it did in others.

So when the iPhone 4 came out a few weeks ago, it didn’t change the world here at the house. At most, there was some note of blurbs that perpetuated the rumors that Verizon Wireless will be offering service on the iPhone sometime next year.

But now that the problems are coming out, I have to admit that I giggled just a little bit when they started having problems with dropped calls if you touched a certain part of the case.

One of the big selling points is how small this thing is. The idea that you can’t touch it somewhere or it’ll quit working is kind of ludicrous.

Apple initially attempted to play it off as just a figment of everyone’s imagination. Here’s a news flash – that many people can’t imagine the same problem in the same way unless it’s real. Think about it – 3 people can’t even describe a traffic accident they all see from the same street corner in the same way – 1.7 million people can’t possibly “imagine” that there’s a problem that isn’t really there.

I don’t want to hear that from a computer company any more than I want to hear it from the doctor. Of course the problem is real!

It’s so bad that Consumer Reports has recommended against buying the product and is steering folks back to earlier versions. That’d be like the Pope suggesting that we take in the Latin Mass for a while, just until things get sorted out in the more recent versions.

Several people have come out with fixes for the problem. There’s a rubber case that you can buy from the Apple folks for $29.00 that solves it. It figures that Apple would offer this – they’ve got more overpriced stuff that you can get only from them than Mattel has for Barbie.

Interestingly enough, you can buy the knockoff just outside their store in New York City for about a third the price.

Some other techie figured out if you hold it with an “Ov Glove” (you’ll see them on television again as we get closer to Christmas), the problem goes away. It’s hard to coordinate that with an outfit, but it’s less than half the price.

Being helpful, Consumer Reports has come up with my own favorite fix. It’s one that I’ve used on a number of things for years.

It’s Duct Tape.

Most homeowners know that it and WD-40 will fix anything. If it moves and it shouldn’t, put a little duct tape on it. If it doesn’t move and it should, squirt it with WD-40.

So Consumer Reports has figured out that you just put a little piece of duct tape over one part of the case and the problem goes away.

Yep. You put a piece of silver duct tape (apparently other colors don’t solve the problem) in a certain place on the stylishly designed case of the cell phone you just paid between $200 and $300, not to mention signing your soul away in a two year contract with the worst cell phone carrier in the business, and the problem is resolved.

I’m thinkin’ this is not going to go over well with the general population, especially given duct tape’s tendency to roll up along the edges and put the sticky side out with the slightest amount of friction.

So as I curse my Blackberry and its limitations, I have to giggle a little bit, like the guy who’s un-trendy 10 year old pickup, complete with scratches and dings, keeps getting borrowed by folks with the little sports car who can’t carry anything home from the hardware store because it won’t fit.

Even though I still hope that, while they’re fixing the glitches with the iPhone, someone at Apple and Verizon are talking about how to get together to this vast untapped market of cell phone users who want to move to the dark side and get this device.

Sometimes you want to drive a new sports car, even when there's nothing wrong with your truck.

Cowboys and Horses

It's an impulse item I realize, but I want it.  Actually, it's two impulse items.

There's a new consignment store just up the street from us.  We wandered through there one day last week, just to see what they had.  There wasn't any intent to buy anything; we were looking more to see what we owned that we could send down there.

Then I saw it.   Sometimes, an item is so unique and perfect that you just have to have it, regardless of the practicality or cost.  There it was, staring at me, a piece of my heritage.

A stuffed adult American Bison.

In great shape.  When you see these come up for sale, they tend to be a bit "shopworn".  Apparently stuffed bison have a relatively short life expectancy for when they're looking good.  This one, however, is in fantastic shape.

I have no idea where it came from or how it happened to be in Hickory, North Carolina, but this master of the Plains was right there waiting to find a new home.

Our home!

Live bison are a pain in the butt.  They're as big as a Toyota and about as bright as a houseplant.  At the Wichita Wildlife Refuge near Lawton, Oklahoma they lose a couple of tourists a year because some moron decides to "pet" the buffalo.  People who live in the area tend to think of it as Darwin's theory in action.

These are not relatives of Bossy the Cow, gently chewing their cud while you massage their breasts to retrieve the milk.  If they were humans, they would wear have multiple piercings and their hair would be dyed a color not found in nature.  They are the relatives that don't get invited to Thanksgiving Dinner because they have significant anger management issues.

A stuffed one, though, is a glorious thing.  Just the conversation piece that a large house like ours needs.  Guests couldn't help but talk about it.

I'd talked myself out of it, though, because it's really not practical.  And it's big and just not practical.  It's just something else to dust.  Did I mention that it's not very practical? We are downsizing, not acquiring. 

Then fate stepped in with the perfect complement to a stuffed bison and I have to rethink my decision.  It's as if the stars lined up and said "buy these things."

Saturday morning on the radio they announced that Trigger is for sale.

For those not in the know, Trigger is Roy Roger’s horse, the bookend to Dale Evan's mount, Buttercup. When Trigger made that last ride into the sunset, Roy had him stuffed and mounted.

The Roy Rogers Museum in Branson, Missouri is apparently a victim of the economic crisis. All of the contents are going to auction through Christie’s Auction House – including Trigger.  It's kind of sad that the museum won't be around any more, although the generations that ran around the back yard with a plan to ". . . head 'em off at the pass and then string 'em up for rustlin' cattle," is also on the downhill slide.

Roy's not in syndication anywhere that I can find, and even his DVD's are on the $1 rack most of the time. 

The market for used cowboys is pretty slim these days.

Trigger wasn’t just any horse. Like “Xerox” or “Kleenex”, “Trigger” became a synonym for not just horses but lots of things that are useful and transport things.

When my friend Patti C’s cancer evolved to the stage that a walker was necessary, her three-wheeled collapsible became “Trigger”. Another friend, having had knee surgery and getting a skooter you kneel on and push along like a skateboard for several weeks dubbed it Trigger as well. Lots of kids bicycles in the 60’s and 70’s were Trigger, at least temporarily.

The original Trigger was destined for infamy in the movies. He was born on Bing Crosby’s ranch in 1934, acquired by Roy Rogers in 1938 and renamed from “Golden Cloud” to “Trigger”. He went on to be in all of Roy Roger’s movies – 188 of them – as well as on the Roy Roger’s show between 1951 and 1957.  He had his own fan club during that time.
One has to wonder if Dale ever got that much screen time or attention.  She just got buried when she passed, and there's no mention made of what happened to Buttercup.  Of course, Roy didn't have any say in what happened to Dale since he went first.  She presumably had enough sense not to try to stuff him to go along with Trigger.

I got to see him once (Trigger, not Roy), when I was in about the 3rd grade.  Trigger was part of a travelling display that went to the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, and our class went on a field trip. 

You couldn't pet him (Trigger, I'm not sure about Roy - he wasn't around and nobody tried as far as I know), but you could see him (Trigger, not Roy) up close. As I recall, holsters and firearms that were along on the trip by the third graders -- and there were more than a few -- were allowed in those pre-metal detector days.

It’s kind of a sad comment on our culture that there’s no longer enough interest in a cowboy icon – or his horse – to maintain a museum in Branson, Missouri, of all places.

So the chance to get THE Trigger -- along with a buffalo to boot -- well, these opportunities come across but once in a lifetime.  I'm trying to talk myself out of it, though.

I probably won’t buy the buffalo or bid on Trigger. Practicality will dictate over the heart and we'll let this opportunity go by.

Did I mention that Trigger isn't any more practical than the Buffalo? 

The auction comes up in just a few days – July 14 and 15 – with the expected sale price between $100,000 and $200,000 for the stuffed horse, I’d probably need longer than that to get a certified check up.

I wouldn’t have time to build a stable by then, anyhow, so guess I’ll have to say “Happy Trails” to Trigger and let him ride off into the sunset, following the buffalo.

A Lesson in Economics

I’m all for helping people. Especially people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in unfortunate circumstances.

Like the people who run businesses along the Gulf Coast, who are learning that their customer base is leaving. They’re finding that their ability to earn a living has suddenly disappeared even though they may have been doing all of the right things.

It’s ice cream vendors who don’t have kids to sell to because their parents have opted out of the beach.

Beach rental owners who have vacancies because Biloxi is not the vacation spot that it was last year.

Wedding planners and florists who have no bookings because who wants to risk their wedding is going to happen on a beach that smells like Jiffy Lube on a busy Saturday morning.

Shrimpers who are no longer allowed to fish and sell their catch.

These are all victims of this disaster, as surely as if the oil were gushing into their living rooms. They are unable to pay their mortgage, feed their families and do the other things that we have to do to live. They need all the help they can get, from about any source that offers it.

There’s a group of people, though, who are undeserving of any assistance.

Yeah, I know – it surprised me when I realized that I felt that way, too. I’m usually not a fan of “merit based assistance”, instead figuring out that anyone who needs help ought to get a shot at it.

The exception, though, is those people who worked on a “cash basis”, and didn’t pay their share of taxes on their income.

Maybe this is just a sore spot with me as my extensions expire and I'm having to finally deal with my own tax return from last year, but I don't think so.

These small businessmen and women are now coming forward and saying that they should be compensated by BP or the government for their lost income. Of course, there are no tax returns or other business records out there to substantiate how much they made. We’re just supposed to trust them and believe how much they said they earned in the prior years.

How much they’ve earned breaking the law in several ways, not the least of which is by not reporting their income.

There is a hue and cry across our nation, especially by individuals of a conservative bent, that undocumented individuals from other countries shouldn’t get any of the benefits of living here because presumably they’re a drain on our system, using medical resources, putting their children in our schools and not paying their fair share.

Other than the fact that their skin may be a different color and they may speak a different language, how is that any different than the guy who sells the fish his brother-in-law caught out of the back of his pickup along side the road? He’s not complying with any of the business regulations that legitimate businesses follow, nor is he paying taxes on that cash that’s crossing his palm.

They are the ones who chose not to fight their way through zoning requirements, or comply with OSHA regulations or the fire marshal or the health department.

And yet, just because he (or she) lives near the coast where this disaster is happening, we’re supposed to replace this undocumented, unreported and untaxed income?

Sorry, but I don’t think so.

Those of us who complied with the regulations, sometimes fighting battles over them to make things better for everyone rather than simply ignoring the rules we didn’t like deserve both to go to the front of the line and to be rewarded for playing by the rules.

I’m sorry that these people are having a tough time, but the reality is the individuals in those situations made decisions – sometimes years ago – to avoid their obligation and sponge off the rest of society.

They got their reimbursement in advance over the years when they weren’t paying their fair share of state and federal income taxes or meeting any of the myriad of regulations imposed on several levels that are required for most businesses.

They bet that they wouldn’t get caught and there wouldn’t be any consequences.

When the only regulation of their actions came from the government, that was probably a pretty good bet. It’s when something unexpected – Hurricane Katrina or a big ol’ runaway oil well under the ocean – that their plan fell apart.

The income from illegal activity should not be replaced. Plain and simple.

Let’s take it a step further and look not only at the guys selling fish out of their truck, or mowing yards or otherwise working on a cash basis.

Let’s talk about the Crack Ho’s.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet several of these ladies in a purely professional capacity.

My profession, not theirs.

I’ve yet to meet one that took Master Card or filed an income tax return reflecting the fact that they engaged in a number of physical activities in exchange for cash money.

No checks. No debit cards. Greenback cash money only.

I would think that it’s safe to assume that several of these women and men ply their trade along the gulf coast, especially in tourist areas. Supply and demand, you know.

Presumably their income will be off for the next few months / years because tourism will be down and well, the locals just aren’t as likely to pony up the money for that little slice of heaven, or if they do it'll be at a deeply discounted rate.

Should their income be replaced because of this disaster?

And what about the dealers who sell them the crack from which their name comes? It’s a cinch that income is all “off the books” as well. Do they get to claim a loss?

These people are entrepreneurs every bit as much as someone who bets everything on a shrimp boat and their own determination. It may or may not work, and income will go up and down many times based upon things over which they have no control.

The weather. Oil wells. Government ineptitude. Crooked suppliers. Lazy employees. Bad decisions.

It’s all there to work through. The difference is that those dealing in a cash economy have chosen to remove themselves from the burdens of operating a legitimate business within our society.

They should not, just because of this disaster, now be able to make a claim for and be reimbursed for their illegal income. They rolled the dice, took a chance and lost.

Now they need to deal with the consequences.

An interesting blog entry

Not mine.  Came through on a list serve that I'm on, but has a powerful message and is worth the read. 

http://naytinalbert.blogspot.com/2010/06/i-hugged-man-in-his-underwear-and-i-am.html

I may comment more after I've had a chance to digest it, but it seems that this guy understands that the "love the sinner, hate the sin" argument is really just bigotry dressed up in nice clothes.  It continues to maintain that there is something inherently "sinful" about same-sex couples.

I hadn't thought about reconciliation.  That's exactly what is needed between religious and gay rights groups.

But for now, I've got to go ponder it a bit more.