READERS, BELOW IS A POST WRITTEN BY MY MOTHER. I HAVE NOT CHANGED OR EDITED IT IN ANYWAY.
I was born in a boxcar without doctor in attendance in a raging blizzard. I was the fifth in a family of eight. When I was six we were fortunate enought to move to a three bedroom house just about 4 months before the eighth and last of my brothers and sisters was born. We thought we had hit the big time. I only had to sleep with one sister and in a separate bedroom from the 3 brothers who had always slept in the next bed.
We had a real basement, not a dug out where things were kept cool under the boxcar set up on a cement foundation. We did not know we had been the poorest family in the little town of 50 where we lived. When Dad got a regular job, finally, he was close to 40 and the depression was finally over.......thanks to WW II. He worked in a canning/freezing factory for the rest of his years, retiring at 65 and dying from a heart attack at 67.
I never knew whether my parents were democrats or republicans because it was not polite to discuss those things in front of others. The political leanings of people were considered private and separate from social life.
My parents were prejudiced against blacks and mexicans...............mostly because they lived in MN which had very few of them. Only some Jamaicans came in by truck at corn harvest and lived in the barracks which were by the factory where Dad ran the big engines. When I left for college I met my first blacks and people of other races, ethnicities, and religious belief. It was an education in itself but I attended college to be a teacher, having a great affinity for children and teaching. I got to know some of them and lo and behold! They were normal people with the same problems and aspirations I had!
I worked every summer, after school, and after classes when I was in college in order to pay for my education or I could not have gotten a degree. There were no college loans, grants or other opportunities at that time. I value that education. It has supported me for about 50 years and given me a background of understanding I might never have gained in a town of 50. By the way, the town is still there and since we lived a block from a lake, it is now a recreation spot with cabins, boat decks and rental places around the edge. There is also a hydroelectric plant on the opposite end of the lake that provides electricity these days. The boxcar was used by a retiree for several years and then taken away and the place where I was born is a vacant, grassy lot.
Anyway, I also resent paying a living for people such as the lady who sat in a house with 2 TV's, a Satin housecoat, 2 house pets, varnished wood floors, and was talking to the TV camera about how she had worked a year out of her welfare years and didn't care for working so went back on welfare and was angry she had been in a flood and they refinished her floors afterwards.......but they were the wrong shade of brown so she wants us to pay for her to have them redone.....She deserves it! She said. Why she deserves that as an able bodied person is beyond my understanding.
I resent having to have a translator for many of the things that are done for me..........at a very good price! Most of the things are well done but if they aren't, I have to get the translator back to describe the short comings! Is that right? Perhaps at 73, it is time for me to finally learn Spanish or Mexican or whatever so I know what they are saying as they grin at the stupid, rich Gringo. Is it too much to ask that people who come into become workers, Americans, or whatever should learn enough English/American to communicate with me? It should be slightly easier for a young person to learn my language than the revers, but that is just my opinion!
I approve of the message below and I am Virginia, running for no office, trying to improve myself as always, and happy to be an evengelical American.............hoping it will remain a free place to say that.
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