This is the man who swore if I worked on the “farm” he would pay my way through university. He made this promise twice and mother confirmed it at least four times. They bought expensive tractors and non-working threshing machines that bogged down in that mud. I worked every summer under appalling conditions without a penny of payment. When I left for college, my parents claimed they had no money to send me, accusing me of thinking “money grows on trees”. Apparently they figured if they accused me of that, they didn’t have to pay what they promised. And they didn’t.As I have mentioned often, during the time my parents said they had no money, they drove two cars and had a combined income in the top 5% of the world. In the end, I got $20 during the next four years and not a cent of it was for school. It turns out they had wanted me to quit school in grade nine to work on the farm so they could “sit in the sun”. Me, a straight honors student, with the highest marks of anyone ever in that family!
Needless to say, those “retirement” plans were never discussed with me and I didn’t even find out about them until years too late. They were sneaky, that lot. I had two younger brothers, born thieves with IQs around room temperature. They were allowed to sit in the warm house watching TV while I worked in the fields, as it turned out, for nothing. They consider themselves clever, for although they got nothing at least they never worked for it either. The comparison stops there. Where I had been promised a reward, they got only what they deserved. So don't hand me any of that "we're all in this together" claptrap. They also forget I was regularly beat up and threatened with death if I didn’t work. They were later to claim these threats were not for real, but I always take death threats seriously.
And that is why I’m continuing to read this book of grim recollections. Later, I finished, it being a short story. The only part I can identify with is how the kid didn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to have any money, nor even to earn his own. The rest of the plot is the tired and worn out theme, “We’s poor but we’s folks” hogwash that my parents loved to preach. They were hypocrites, of course, because they were never brought up like that and they never knew anybody else who was either.
Again, blog rules I must report anything unusual. Of all the crazy flu symptoms the soles of my feet and palms of my hands are painful to any pressure. It has been three long weeks of varying signs but this one takes the cake. I can barely walk or pick things up without serious dull soreness. Isn’t that the damnedest flu sign ever?
By mid-afternoon, I managed to bike over to Nicki’s. This is the place Wallace treated us to dinner back in oh-seven. I’ve not returned until now, my first real restaurant meal in all that time. The waitress pointed out a customer who was 103 and works every day. Nicki’s is an old style café and I had to cancel my coffee. I used to smoke and the very sight of a mug of restaurant coffee was too much temptation. She took it off my bill.
[Author's note: "Nicki" is not the restauranteur, he is the owner. Apparently quite the colorful character, he owns all the houses on both sides of the street up to the north. And, the way he runs that eatery, he also owns City Hall. I found out later the health department has been trying to shut him down for years, but can't get anybody at City Hall to enforce the codes.]
Later, I started another James Patterson mystery, “Cross”. It’s better than the last, but still too mushy in stretches. Especially the family scenes written for movie rights. Still, the plots are lively and since I had to go up to Wal*mart for new bicycle grips, I stopped at the Panera for coffee and read twelve chapters. That place has attracted the wrong kind of crowd for me, which explains my nose in a book. They all seem to be or have been day laborers. My family were day laborers, useless, over-opinionated day laborers.
* [Author's note: "willful ignorance" is a term I use to describe people who think being "dumb" is cool. Think Barbarino on "Welcome Back, Kotter", for those advanced enough to remember the character. Or to use ignorance as a deliberate defense, sort of, claiming you didn't steal $500 because you can't count that high. Choosing to be ignorant is not the same as the relatively shallow tactic of "playing dumb". Once the threshhold is passed, ignorance becomes the real deal for such people. They can never recovoer from it, so they spend their lives defending ignorance, usually by calling down those who are not.]
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