A Thanksgiving Update~~~

Hello Sweet Things,

I hope you don't mind the picture that I've posted but as you go further down reading I think you'll understand why I posted it.

Thanksgiving with my family was wonderful! Baby Sis and Ted her fiance, Mom and Dad, and Trixie the dog, (she was a good little girl).

Dad also invited some of his co-workers who couldn't get together with their families for Thanksgiving, he said it would be a shame for them to be alone.

I'm not going to tell you the feast we had, but we had all the traditional fare, but substituted sparkling cider for wine. I loved it, Mom had made copies for Baby Sis and I of her recipes she said she plans to copy all her favorites for us.

I had a chance to call Joe while he was at Lillian's for their dinner, he said he had to go on duty that evening, so they were having theirs early and he was taking extras as sandwiches for his late supper. Turkey with cranberry spread sandwiches, it may make for a strange sandwich but tasty.

Afterwards we played games first it was "Squeak" a card game, and then "Chicken foot Domino's" I had no idea how to play the latter but I learned. Mom is deadly at that game.

It was good that Dad had invited Alex his co-worker to dinner, his wife had to go back east because her Mother was very ill and she had to help out her sister, Alex was feeling lonely and was thinking of some restaurant then taking in a movie, but Dad said he was coming to our house, and Ralph who is a widower, he lost is wife last year and his children live out of state. Ralph's funds were a bit tight to travel he had just paid off the last of his wife's medical bills, which is sad because although the insurance came through for the bulk of it, there were some that could not be written off and the cost of the funeral as well. And Dad told Ralph that he wasn't going to be alone for this holiday or for Christmas either.

Seeing my Father put himself out there for Alex and Ralph during their difficult times warmed my heart. Dad was always so self-contained before, but as we took our late night walk with Trixie, Dad told me that he is looking at people and situations in a different way, and sometimes, the best gifts he's discovered are the one's that are not bought and gift-wrapped but one's from the heart. He had seen Ralph just looking so down after his wife passed, that he thought he might be suffering from Depression and so one day after work, they got together for coffee and Dad suggested that Ralph see someone to help him make sense of his loss, he knew that the priest from the church that he and Mom go to is also a specialist as a grief consular, so he suggested that Ralph go and see him, even if Ralph is of a different faith.

And it seems to be helping. Dad said that Ralph is now more focused at work and seems a bit lighter in outlook, but the holidays can always be a set back.

I thought that Dad was going to plan to retire next year but he said that he's going to put it off for another year or two. He enjoys the routine and he said that if he retired he'd just be getting into Mother's way, but he told me that he is quick to ask the younger staff members their opinions on things, more staff input, more "brain storming" to which the productiveness has increased as well as moral.

I'm planning on going down the day before Christmas and staying through New Years with the Folks, with Dad's Internet connection I'd have no problem staying in touch with the office.

Joe had a busy Thanksgiving holiday, there were good things and difficult things, the shooting they had recently in which a 1 year old was shot in the head has him feeling down, and the little guy is still in critical condition, just because someone wanted to take out a local rap artist. Joe said that because of the violent competition between rappers and their "fans" no one wants to hold a rap concert, there is no guarantee that no one will not get hurt.

I said in an earlier post that I'd have to modify my thoughts on education and jobs...on the education portion I found out that there are special programs for people who do not have the finances to pay for the training jobs, and this is being offered though several government programs, it's to help keep people on track and off the welfare roles by training them and getting them job assistance especially for those that do not have the funds to pay for training or junior college.

The other thing is that I read in a recent Bloomberg Business Week magazine (Nov 14, 2011 ?approx.) the cover said why Americans won't work. Well they do but they don't want to or can't seem to handle the hard back breaking work like picking tomatoes or cleaning fish, or changing beds. In Alabama alone because of a law in regards to immigrants many of them that were doing these jobs, left because of their illegal status, even when employers used the government Internet program to verify their status.

So several young men who were out of work went to pick tomatoes and most of them quit after one week---Why? Because the work is hard, picking tomatoes in the hot sun. One Employer stated yes the work is hard, but they have the same type of guys working in the hot foundries and that is hotter and more dangerous than picking tomatoes, but the difference is the benefits.

One young man said it is hard and he's just amazed that these immigrants they just keep at it, hardly taking breaks and he's exhausted. Another employer also admitted the work at his fish factory is hard too, cold and long hours but if the work isn't done the food that is produced will rot and go to waste.

One young white male said that for someone like him such work is like impossible, how can anyone white or black do that kind of work that the immigrant workers are doing.

It had me thinking that since these are minimum wage jobs, with next to nothing in benefits, it is one of the reasons why some of our food costs are so low, years ago from the teens to the 1950's in Montery, Ca. there were all these sardine processing factories, and everyone for blocks and blocks around worked in these factories and they were not immigrants per se, so when the sardine boats came in the factories would blow their whistles to call everyone to work and they did, hard, cold, miserable, stinking work to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table and clothes on their backs.

Now the sardines are gone fished out, the Cannery factories on Cannery Row turned into Restaurants, or boutiques and all hurting in this current economy. And back in the depression and drought of the 1930's farmers lost their homes, and people moved from place to place camping out in shacks to work the next crop, the classic picture of the farmer's wife with the two children taken by Dorothea Lang, is iconic for that period, but what a lot of people don't know is that the family eventually by following the crops and available work found themselves in California in L.A. and some years later that same woman, much older saw that photo of herself at an exhibit and she was mad, she said that they were not poor and are not poor, she has a nice house and wonderful children and grandchildren.

What had happen is that when the husband found work and she found work they saved up enough to buy a house and live comfortably, they, according to this same woman were just going though a hard time and were doing what they could to find work.

In the National Review magazine either Nov. 14 or 28 there is an article about the "philosophy" of the Occupy groups, but it is, according to the author a dangerous "Marxist" philosophy.

My thoughts were almost on the same line, I felt that the Occupy groups were really not focusing on the problem and were in danger of falling victim like the characters in the novel "Animal Farm".

As I've said before I worked for my education, hunted for grants and scholarships, went hungry, shared a place with 3 or 4 other girls, walked to save on bus fare, had to go to free clinics when I got sick, even went a dental school when I had a toothache and allowed myself to be a teaching "device" while my toothache was being treated to save money, or for check ups or cleaning, I don't need to tell you how painful that was. To get my hair permed or cut I'd go to a beauty college and allow myself to be a "guinea pig" for students, more than once I had to wear a knit cap to hide the mistakes.

And I had no guarantee that there would be a job out there for me, NONE! I went to the Library the other day and a staffer whom I'm friendly with said that they had one opening for a technician, only one and 92 applicants for the job, every one with different degrees of experience but one, just one edged out the rest by the tiniest of margins.

If the people who are a part of the Occupy groups think that by doing this it will get them jobs, it won't. They forget we are now a Global Economy, not a National one so they are competing with people from India, China, the Philippines, Mexico, etc., etc., etc., for jobs. So they better be prepared to pick tomatoes or clean fish.

The one thing the Occupy groups do have right is the so-called hidden bailouts by the government to the banks, but they need to look deeper, if some of these bailouts didn't happen, more people would have their homes lost with no options for re-financing.

But as I've heard one old-timer say to me "Gas, Grass or what you sit on, nobody, but NOBODY gets a free ride."

Now a slight apology, perhaps I'm over simplifying things, being too simplistic, the issues that surround our economy our un-employment, our fee raising, is far more complicated. I for one do not approve of handing out bonuses and high raises on the backs of students and their parents, I do not approve of stock holders getting big dividends on the backs of the elderly, I do not approve of our government slackers at the Capitol doing cut backs on our elderly, widowed and children.

So if the Occupy groups want to really make a statement, Do it at our Nation's capital in the Middle of Winter if need be and let everyone else get to work doing their job that you are intent on disrupting.

Sorry Sweet Things---I really have a lot of pent-up anger tonight. I think I need some pumpkin spice bread that Mom sent to me, some hot coco and watch "Columbo" on the retro T.V. program when times might have been simpler.

Kisses Sweet Things and thank you for letting me Rant.