When Home was lost. (Part 1 of 2 - maybe more)

He had traveled this road so many times, on foot, on bike, in the car... So many times that he could navigate it with his eyes closed.

"Turn left at the big green house, then right at the next corner.", he said through a yawn, "It's the white house in the middle on the right." He was navigating with his eyes closed, fighting sleep while giving directions.

"Al, you all right?", the driver asked. What was his name again? He couldn't remember, just some guy he had talked into driving him home. He couldn't wait until he got his driver's license; it was still 5 months until his 16th birthday, but he was counting the days. Unlike many of the kids in his class he lived too close to the school to get an under-age permit. But that was ok, he already had his own car and didn't have to drive mama and daddy's like most of them did.

Like so many times before, Al had to find his own way home again. Not that he cared much, home wasn't really home anyway. The longer he could stay away from it the better. Finding a ride often meant side trips and extra stops, and that was just fine.

That was the main reason he went this time, to stay away from home. Was he really learning anything at church camp? No, not really, not any more. The first couple of times, were fun; he made good friends and even met a girl or two, but not this time. Now it wasn't about what he would learn, it wasn't about having that "been to the mountaintop" feeling, it was about escape.

The driver turned off of Main Street - or whatever it was called. Supposedly, all the streets had names now - yes, indeed, they put up the street signs along Main Street - sorry, "Washington Avenue" - while he was gone. Not that anyone would ever use them; in a small town you never had to. If you ever needed to give someone directions you always said things like "left at the Post Office, then straight on for two blocks, look for the big oak tree - can't miss it" or "you know where old man Hrovak lives? Right by there". The mail man didn't even worry about it, all the mail in town was delivered to boxes at the Post Office instead of house to house.

He let his eyes drift shut again. This time he'd gone without sleep for almost three days. Why? Why not? It was the only time he could get better acquainted with his latest "girlfriend" without the adults hassling him. Not that it was ever anything to brag about, at least not to the jocks and farmers at school. Girls you met at church camp seemed to think letting you kiss them was best saved for marriage, holding hands practically meant you were engaged. No, it was more about feeling wanted than anything physical. He had his hometown girl for that kind of stuff anyway.

He could tell by the bumps in the gravel road that they were almost at the corner. He knew he'd be home in less than a minute; the thought was like a punch in the gut. Who would be home at four on a Saturday afternoon? He hoped no one, being alone and lonely was preferable to the alternative. Even when his Mom and brother were home he spent all his time in his room so he could be alone and lonely. He didn't worry about his father, the man was never home - even when he was at the house.

Al opened his eyes just as the car came to a stop. Since it was right in front of his house, he was looking right at the big pink house next door. He couldn't help but look at it, bright pink didn't exactly blend into the neighborhood. In a flash the interior of that house toured through his mind. Of course he knew the inside of that house - he knew the inside of just about every house in town, having been inside each of them at one point or another over the last 11 years he'd lived in this middle-of-nowhere town, same as everyone else here in town. In fact, his first girlfriend had lived there. What was her name again? Didn't matter, she and her family had moved a long time ago.

Girlfriend. He'd have to call Kathy when he got in the house. At least Al thought of her as his girlfriend, while he was home anyway. She was two years behind him in school, with his brother in 7th grade, way too young to date, but so was he. That didn't stop them from doing things that older kids shouldn't be doing, things the church camp girls wouldn't do without a pre-nuptual agreement. Who could blame us, he thought, there wasn't anything else to do in this one-horse town.

He shook off another yawn as he climbed from the passenger seat to meet his driver by the trunk. While he waited, he glanced up the street at the water tower peeking over the tops of the trees, the last syllable of the town's name was barely visible from this side of town. Why did he hate it here so much? After all, this was really the only home he could remember. They had moved here shortly before he started kindergarten. His father had gotten a job at the dog food factory in the next town and his mother worked as a teachers assistant at the school. According to the sign at the edge of town 630 people lived here, though technically many of those lived on farms in the surrounding country side. Since sixth grade his class had been the largest this school had ever seen - twenty-five kids. The football team would never make it to state, not because there weren't any good player on the team, but because there wasn't a class for schools that small.

He found himself standing at the end of the sidewalk, his gym bag dangling in his right hand. When had his ride driven away? Did he say "thank you"? He shrugged. Didn't matter. Like so many others before, he was just a 10 minute friend, someone you make friends with only long enough to get what you need. He could have gotten the guy's address and promised to write, but he knew he wouldn't. He only wrote to the girls, and only then so he could string them along; hoping he would get more than sweaty palms the next time he saw them if he wrote them love-letters. He didn't really care to have any guy friends anyway, girls were easier to hang around with and talk to.

He looked to his left, his Mom's car was in the driveway, his brother's bike was gone. Well, one out of two, he thought. John had probably gone to stay at his best-friend Curt's house again. He couldn't blame him, his brother probably needed his own escape. His mother was still home, though. Didn't she have bowling or ceramics class or something tonight? Most likely. That was good, she wouldn't be home very long. She always had something to go to, her own way of escape. Strange family I have, he thought, a whole bunch of Houdinis, all looking to escape. He thought of the families he saw on TV, like the Cunninghams on Happy Days. Why couldn't he have a family like that? The worst problems Richie ever had involved pretty girls and whether he would "find his thrill on blueberry hill".

He climbed the rickety wooden steps onto the rickety wooden porch. The front door was open, like it normally was on a hot summer afternoon. He could see through the screen door that his mother was sitting at the kitchen table, her back to the door. The blue cloud hanging in the air told him she was having a tough day, she always smoked a lot when she was depressed, which lately was almost all the time.

Time to put on the happy face, he thought. If he walked in the house like he'd had the time of his life she wouldn't ask any questions.

"Mom! I'm home!", he chimed as the screen door hissed shut behind him. The dog, who normally barks like crazy when anyone comes through the door, was asleep on the couch. Odd, he thought, Mom doesn't normally let the dog on the furniture, stupid thing sheds like crazy. His mother didn't turn around, the blue cloud stirred as she exhaled.

"Sit down", she said without looking at him, "I need to tell you something."

"O.....K...." He could tell it was bad this time. This wasn't about the Playboy he kept under his mattress, this wasn't about what the nosy neighbors on the other side of the back ally saw him doing with his girlfriend last week, this was bad. He sat across from her at the faded laminate kitchen table.

"Your father," she started slowly, "he left us. He doesn't love us anymore."

The floor folded up and smothered him against the ceiling.

To be continued....

Plea to America - Return to Sanity!

The Neighborhood Store

In light of what is about to be $4/gallon gas prices, you'd think this would be common sense, but I have not heard or seen anything that leads me to believe this is on anyone's mind.

I grew up in small town Nebraska, really small, less than 700 people (and that's if you count the cows!). The next biggest town was 7 miles away, and that one only had about 2000. The nearest city was about 30 miles. In this little town, we had almost everything we needed. There was a post office, a cafe, 2 gas stations, a church (that often doubled as a gathering place), there was even a dance hall - though that was a little way out of town. Most of all, we had a grocery store.
Now it wasn't a super market, it really only had the necessities - milk, meat, a few canned goods, cigarettes, candy, etc. Anyone looking for anything special wasn't going to find it, but for the average family they had everything they'd need. The best part was, it was in the center of town, only about 4 blocks from anywhere, if you had a cart or a wagon you didn't even need your car. Sure, the prices were a little higher than the Jack & Jill in the next town, and somewhat higher than the Food 4 Less warehouse store in the city, but you had to drive to those.

Then Wal-Mart came on the scene. The company had been around for a while, but until they started building everywhere and got into the grocery business, no one noticed. They moved into the city and suddenly people from my small town were driving to the city to get their groceries and who could blame them? The price difference was such that even when you spent the gas to drive there, you were still saving money. Oh, people still went to the little store on Main Street, but only when you needed some milk or butter. The little grocery store was now being treated as a convenience store, doing some business, but since they couldn't compete with Wal-Mart they struggled.

Now I live in a neighborhood that's quite a bit bigger than that little town I lived in. The nearest store is 3 miles away. While it is still technically possible to walk there, that is quite a ways to go on foot in the hot New Mexico sun to get a gallon of milk. And maybe I'm a little hypocritical, but we do most of our shopping at the Wal-Mart in the city. But I would give anything to have a neighborhood grocery store now.

Here in America, we have made ourselves dependent on our automobiles. Instead of supporting the neighborhood stores in our small towns, we drive and give our money to the people in the city. Now, small town stores, and small towns, are disappearing. What started out as saving a little money has now become a necessity because the neighborhood store doesn't exist anymore. Maybe it wasn't a big deal when people were still spending a small percentage of their income to gas up their cars, but now, as gas prices are about to shoot through the roof, we no longer have choices. We killed the store on main street to save a few dollars, and now we could save a few dollars by staying in town.

Three years ago, I spent about 5% of my income on gas - most of it used to get back and forth to work. Now, I spend about 10% of my income. We cut corners whenever we can, often combining trips as much as possible, but it's still expensive to get around. If we had a store only a few blocks away, that would save us a lot of money, much more than we save by going into town to go to Wal-Mart.

Also, at this time in history, we are facing a man-made disaster: Global warming. Everyone is staying we should save energy, not just to save money, but to save the planet. If everyone could walk to the neighborhood store instead of driving, think of the impact that would make. But again, we've given up our choices out of a desire to save a few dollars.

This is my plea to those of you out there who have the means: bring back the neighborhood store. If everyone only had to go a few blocks to get their groceries, think of the impact that would have on everything. We could not only make a difference in our communities, but we could make a difference to the world.

What do you mean by "not covered"?

I never really understood why so many people complained about their health insurance. Ours seemed to be doing it's job, we went to the doctor, paid the co-pay, got the prescription, paid the co-pay for that. Everything seemed to be working. Of course we never really added it all up, the insurance was taken out of my paycheck every two weeks and we didn't really think about the money. But then things changed.

For one thing, we started to have to pay the insurance ourselves. Now that I am receiving disability, we mail in a check instead of having it taken out of our pay. (Also, since I am not working, the company is not paying for part of it, so what we are paying is doubled, but that was expected). We are actually seeing how much we are paying out for our insurance now - which turns out to be about 20% of our income.

The other thing that happened is that we actually started using the insurance. When my health started crashing, we went from seeing the doctor now and then to seeing him all the time and also seeing many specialists that he sent me to. We went from needing a prescription now and then to needing many prescriptions all the time. Not to mention many tests.

All of a sudden, what we thought was a pretty good insurance turned out to not be so good. We were seeing the bills and what the insurance was paying vs. our co-pays. On top of that the insurance company suddenly starting sending us notices saying they don't cover certain things.
The short version is that we now have a huge pile of bills that the insurance company won't pay and are continuing to pile on more bills as I need to continue receiving medical attention. Now that we have all the information in front of us, we can see that we are actually paying out more for the insurance than it would cost us out of pocket to pay for it ourselves.

What went wrong here? At what point did the insurance companies stop taking care of people? Isn't the whole idea behind insurance to spread the cost around? Wasn't the system designed to have many people pay in to the insurance company, then the company pays it back out to the people as needed? Sure some people would need it less while others need it more, but for those who needed it, it was cheaper to pay in to the insurance than to pay for it themselves. Now, it actually is costing more for the insurance than it would to pay for it myself.

On top of that, the insurance company is trying to tell my doctor how to treat me. Recently, I needed an allergy medicine. I had to have a certain prescription brand because of the other medicines I was taking. I had to have a particular type because over the counter brands would cause dangerous reactions with the other pills I was taking. So, my doctor prescribed it. We go over to the pharmacy to get it filled, only to have the insurance company deny. They said they won't cover it because an over the counter brand was just as effective (which they won't pay for either!) It took the pharmacist, the prescribing doctor, and my primary care calling the insurance company to get them to cover it - and even then we had to pay a higher co-pay.
When did this whole system get so out of hand? Why should the insurance company make more money off of me than my doctors would if I paid them directly? Why should they get to have a say in how my doctor cares for me and not just pay the bills?

Please, when you vote next year, keep the health-care system on your list of important issues.

What happened to "We buy American so you can too"?

"Made in China" is becoming synonymous with "Hazardous to your health". The most recent one put me over the top. A certain craft-type toy was recalled because a glue-like additive was not used in favor of a cheaper but toxic substance. Ingestion of the colored beads made with this substance resulted in the body turning the chemical into GHB, also known as the "date rape" drug. Children who had fallen victim were in comas and if proper treatment was not given death could result. The news reported that no explanation was given for the substitution, but the toxic substance was 3 times cheaper than the right additive.

Am I the only one going "WTF!"?

At what point are we going to take some responsibility for our own children? Toy companies all over the world are choosing to have their toys made the cheapest way possible. Parents are gladly snapping these cheap toys off the shelf. This creates a vicious circle, parents demand cheap toys, the companies demand cheap toys, so the factories take short cuts. We got what we asked for.

What will it take for us to get back to sanity here? Let's do the right thing, first for the children, then for the rest of us. Let's start making stuff here. First of all, we can do it right, and most of all, it will be good for everyone (creates jobs, less fuel spent to transport, etc. etc.)

This brings me full circle. If we do what's best for the neighborhood, then it benefits us all. Let's overcome the Wal-Mart way of doing things and get back to some sanity here. Let's spend a little more to take it out of the store, and in the end we'll save so much more.