I woke up last night, my youngest daughter had kicked off her quilt, so I went in and covered her up. As I lay back in bed I thought how quiet things are at this time of night. I remembered the beautiful moments of calming a baby in the middle of the night. The quiet. The stillness. Then in the distance, as I lay there last night, the world interupted things with some gunfire. Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. It was far enough away not to wake anyone, but it reminded me of the terrible world that has been created here. Then I thought of my sleeping daughters and the great potential that all children have, to change this world.
At 6am I left for my union local's roll call for the 500 carpenters we have out of work. I've now moved up to #185 on the list. I should get a job in 2011.
I needed to get back home to hand over the car to my wife, so I got to the union hall 30-minutes early. Even at 6.30 there were 7 guys in the line. And there's no real advantage to getting there early. My buddy Jason was there. He's almost always first in line to get his dues card checked. As a younger carpenter, he has an increased chance of being on the receiving end of carpenter humour. Many years ago Jason was my apprentice. Then one day he just didn't show up. I didn't have a phone number for him, but I guessed what happened to him.
Five years went by and he came up to me at I me at a union meeting and shook my hand firmly. He'd been away. He'd served four years.
Today he is first in line at Roll Call, and yelled over to me "what's going on Rob?" He sniggered when I mentioned my unemployment benefits would run out in January and responded, "mine ran out 8 months ago!" Wow, I thought. A guy asked him what he does for money? Well, he's moved back in with his parents. This was the trigger for everyone to kick in their advice for Jason. One life coach after another had something to say.
Why doesn't he apply for food stamps? Well, his parents are working and their household income is too high, "you see it goes by total household income!" Someone else yelled over that if you're unemployed you can still get food stamps. All the gathered experts, including myself, gave their input.
After a thoughtful pause one guy asked if he could increase his food stamp eligibility by claiming his parents didn't like him and wouldn't feed him. This seemed to make a lot of sense to us all. Jason threw his hands up as if to challenge our collective wisdom. Well, the last comment seemed to put the issue to rest anyway.
After a full 20-second gap, another dude threw Angelina Jolie into the pot. Jason is in his 20s, obviously worked-out when he was in prison, although he may have let himself go a little, but adoption was ruled out by everyone. Celebrity adoption even.
Rob
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