some ookng

n weekends I cook.

There’s no time to cook

during the week — stay-
ing afloat in this rich man’s econ-
omy takes all the rest of my time.
I’m not complaining, at least I
have a job, at least I can buy
food to cook.

My job happens to keep
me in touch with all sorts of
employers. On any given day I
may speak with dozens of people
in manufacturing, government,
health care, tourism, education
and farming; with mechanics,
web designers, security guards,

traffic engineers, EMTS or call

center recruiters. And these days
they are all singing the same
song ~ “We’re on layoff,” “We
have a hiring freeze,” “We don’t
have enough work to keep our
employees busy," “We haven’t
hired in a year," “We’re expect-
ing a budget cutback.”

The employees tell me,
“This is my last day of work and
I don’t know what I’m going to
do,” “I’m trying to do the work
of five people now, and it’s only
going to get worse,” and, some-

 

need, even if it means that we
have to save up for years for a
first car, for the big red tool chest
of butch dreams, or for our sun-

‘ set years in a gay retirement

village.

Being American means
being privileged to one degree or
another. If we’re spoiled and
acquisitive, so be it, that’s who
we are — from the immigrant
expecting gold in the streets to
the children ofthe self-made
industrialist. And -today, our
dreams are being taken away
from us by the men on top of the
heap whom so many Americans
trusted enough to send to
Washington.

My friend may need

to join the

wandering tribes of

highly educated Americans
who are the new

migrant workers, following
the job market away from
their established lives.

how most heart-rending of all,
“I’m still here, but all my friends
were laid off last week.”

As much noise as the
folks in the White House are
making over war and homeland
security, they can’t drown out
much longer the sound of heart-
broken Americans made redun-
dant. We’re a proud people who
-feel hollow without a purpose
and without the structure employ-

I 'ment gives to our lives. Our self-

worth is bound up in accomplish-
ments and pay checks. We are
accustomed to buying what we

I have a friend in
Connecticut whose whole state
agency may be eliminated. She V
provides vocational services to
the disabled who will in turn lose
the assistance they need to get
jobs. My' friend the librarian
doesn’t know where she’ll be in
six months if the budget crunch
eliminates her job. She may need
to join the wandering tribes of
highly educated Americans who
are the new migrant workers, fol-
lowing the job market away from
their established lives — or stay-
ing home and taking jobs as

pump jockeys.

A year ago, with so -
many new prisons being built,
people who could find nothing
else went into the growth indus-
try of corrections. Today those
new corrections officers are out
on the street alongside prisoners
released for lack of money to
keep them inside. Large corpora-
tions once promised stability, but
bonus-fat CEOs find it more
important to feed profits to
investors than to feed employees.
They too are cutting back.

And we have to eat.
Personally, I think the discovery
of the crockpot is the greatest
thing since the wheel. They’re
easy to find at garage sales and
they turn the most economical
foods into tasty nutrition, like
stew, or rice and beans.

How big a hint does
Washington need that its policies
are increasing hunger in
America? The food banks here in
the northwest are emptying or, in
rural areas, closing down alto-
gether. Does this administration
care? Do they think that all the
laid off workers can get jobs with
Homeland Security? Not likely —
that agency will be the result of
shuffling 170,000 already-
employed workers from 22 exist-
ing federal agencies into the
Bureau of Big Brother.

Of course, now that
350,000 putatively straight sol-
diers and sailors have been
shipped off to the mideast, fortu-
itously making a positive dent in
the employment statistics, the
young people of America
shouldn’t have any problem get-
ting work with the military.
Lucky kids, they can use food
stamps to supplement their mea-
ger incomes and come home —
whole, I hope — unequipped for

» any job except the road crew -

which is laying off too.

It’s bleak out there. But
it’s cozy in here with the crock-
pot releasing mouth-watering
smells. Five or six centuries ago
Henry IV is said to have
declared, “I want thereto be no

_ peasant in my realm so poor that

he will not have a chicken in his
pot every Sunday.” Another com-
passionate conservative. Get a
clue, George II. V

Copyright Lee Lynch 2003

Lee Lynch is the author of eleven
books including The
Swashbuckler and the Morton
River Valley Trilogy. She lives on
the Oregon Coast and comes
from a New England family.

Groundhogs

oont'd from previous page

groundhogs as she brings us back

I .to the light and helps us realize

that the Spring Equinox is, afier

all, only six weeks away. V

Pippin is a radical faerie waiting
for the light to return to the north
facing slope that is Faerie Camp
Destiny. He is also known as

Christopher Kaufman and serves
as the Executive Director of

R. U.1.2? Community Center: He
can be reached at

pippin@sover. net

             

5 a at o r o

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