So the better half and I had to go out of town to take care
of some family business and on the way back we decided to take the scenic
route. We had a wonderful 2/3 of a trip. The last third it began to drizzle so
it took some of the luster off the whole trip, however the first part was all sunshine
and blue sky.
You forget how beautiful this country is when you take the
interstates all the time. I was thinking as we were driving that everyone in
D.C. needs to get off their back ends and go see America. It might remind them of
the people they should be representing. I know it is too late for road trips
back home for Thanksgiving for all our Representatives and their staffs, but
sometime soon they need to make it a priority.
They might see parts of the country that make up our agriculture,
the solar power plants, the wind farms the oil pumps, and even the road work on
the two lane highways. Yes we drove mostly through Texas and all of the above
was almost side by side as we drove. You pass a field of cotton, then cattle
grazing, a solar field, some oil pumps still going and it was quite an eye
opening experience. And all of it with the horizon stretching forever. And this
was especially nice with the sun shining.
You pass through many small towns and see the old businesses
boarded up and the new chains taking over and wonder what could be done to revitalize
local economies. Towns where main street is thriving, but the periphery is old
boarded up hotels and restaurants, yet the fast food chains and chain hotels
thrive. You see buildings of unknown businesses falling apart. At one time each
of the towns had their own economy, yet either through various recessions or
changes in the local economy it has slowly disappeared to be replaced by the
various corporate entities that populate suburbia. These towns are losing their
character. These are the descendants of the people that made this country great
and yet they are the visible signs of the wealth gap in this country. People
that use to own local businesses have children that make minimum wage in the
corporate world.
And you know their educational opportunities are slowly
disintegrating as the town loses its economic base. Those corporations are not
reinvesting in local infrastructure. All those profits are going back to Wall
Street. Schools in these towns are ignored in state capitals and then you read
about the school voucher system in Texas and wonder what it all means for the
children of farmers and the energy laborers. Will they be able to have the wherewithal
to rebuild their towns? If the family is struggling, if the opportunities are
working for out of state profiteers, if the schools are rotting, what does this
mean for the future of what use to be the backbone of this country. Yes I am
being somewhat idyllic, however we need the caregivers of our open spaces and
producers of what we eat given the opportunity to thrive. If we let the
corporations run everything, they will run everything into the ground then move
on. If profit is our country’s only goal then when the well run dries what
happens next? Death, depletion, desertion, despair for large portions of our
country do not make for greatness.
And if you stop and do grab a bite to eat, or get gas you
find they are the same wonderful people you might want them to be. They are
friendly, cheerful on the outside, but when it is slow in the convenience store
you can see in their eyes the fatality of having no future. The children still
behave as children, laughing, talking running in and out, yet you worry what
happens when they turn 18. What do they do next? I think it was fortunate that
not too many Wal marts dotted the landscape, yet they were there slowly sapping
the money out of the town to make billionaires even richer while the worker bees
struggle to pay for housing and food. A few do well, especially the people who
owned land and were able to hold onto it. They had the oil boom, now it is
windfarms, but they are the minority. They lease the land and take in their royalties,
but their money is spent either at the chain restaurant or they go out of town
to buy what they need such as brand new trucks or other luxuries that they
alone can afford. The car dealerships are scarce, the repair shops are non
existent, an occasional real estate company has a sign, there are no farmer
markets, no grocery stores, just the Dollar General, where the market isn’t big
enough for a Wal Mart, which is an overpriced substitute for basic necessities.
Yes, it is Texas but the price of gas in these towns is much
higher than the truck stops on the interstate. And honestly some of this is
because the markets are not big enough to support large businesses, but that
same small market at one point had an economy and people thrived, hair was cut
or styled by local people, furniture was bought or was available in one town
for a few, sundries existed so people could do their sewing or craft work that
was actually needed and wasn’t just some hobby for people at church.
So what can be done to bring back strong local economies,
give people an opportunity to thrive again, and why does Washington ignore so
many of our own?
The drive is beautiful, the scenery breathtaking, the
rounding of a bend to see more and more, the cattle eating lazily near the
fences by the side of the road, a horse galloping by, the field full of cotton
or other deep green crop, (couldn’t tell what it was, but there were quite a
few fields of this really deep green, and it wasn’t too tall either) fills the
land between the towns. And yet the towns are losing their luster, their
hometown feel, their people so what becomes of not a nostalgic era, but of the
livelihoods of so many who choose not to live in a big city. Does Washington
think they do not matter?
Yes it would be a fantasy to believe that all of a sudden
thousands of pretentious lawmakers take it upon themselves to do a bit of fact
finding on the future of large swaths of our country. Unfortunately it is
necessary. Instead though they take the lobbyists money and campaign donations
to stay in power. Their stench stays in Washington to appease Wall Street and a
few others, but what would make the country great again rots away with a
different kind of stench. The stench of economic decay. And at some point it
will be too late and the greed of the uber wealthy will not be able to sustain
any economy as it sucks dry the people it has built its wealth upon.
These small towns are the first to go. They have survived
hard times before, yet as corporate greed takes over their economies the well
will run dry and many beautiful locales will be like the withering structures
of a bygone era that now appear on the roads in and out of town. Main street
still has some continuity going, but if you actually drive the speed limit
through town it is way too easy to see the dye cast for their lack of future.
So as you enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner and even though
this is bleak I do hope I haven’t ruined it. I just want to remind you that we
still can be a thankful nation, but it takes action and understanding. Why give
up on something that was so integral to our country’s growth? We should be
thankful for what we have, have had and what we can have, and not lose sight of
the whole of our country and what everyone brings to the table.
Cheers
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