There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

Today was full of mixed emotions, all of them pertaining to geography. I started the day out seeing the beautiful snow covered hills and trees of GV, and ended it driving through the remarkably impoverished town of Honcut, where old Victorian mansions, complete with marble statues in the yard, sit next to decrepit trailers. I also witnessed a small doggy, the size of a medium handbag, twitching on the side of the road in the last throes of a painful death.

Yeah, that was tragic.

But what got me really mad (after I tried to get the image of the squirming doggy out of my head) is how people choose to live. I have never seen the extent of trash and debris thrown haphazardly around so many yards. I swear, landfills are more sanitary and less over-run with rubbish.

And I say choose because the people who lived there let it get that bad. I know that the economy if bad, that probably all of these people are on welfare, and that they might not have any other choice than to live in a trailer. Even a trailer that is rusting to death, is missing windows, and leaks is beater than nothing at all. I get that. But why, if you're living in such extreme poverty, is it allowable to let your trash accumulate to such overwhelming measures? Obviously the 3 cars missing various parts ended up in your yard somehow, as did the broken trampoline, the various plastic oddities, the large rusted frames, the stained mattress with the springs poking through, and the unknown amount of scrap wood, metal, wires, and broken unidentifiable oddities. And this doesn't' even include the trash from normal living: the cans, bottles, cigarette butts, fast food and candy bar wrappers, and newspapers. What- so you're poor and therefore can't use a broom?

This is a CLEAN trailer, the likes of which would fit in perfectly well in Honcut.


Seriously, this is what most of the houses looked like. Except the area around them was a quagmire of trash- filled death, waiting to spread tetanus to any small child playing on their busted bike in front.

Even this place is SUPER CLEAN compared to how these people were living.

I have some ideas! Despite the fact that you live in such a rural location that there is no garbage removal (meaning that you don't pay for it), be like everyone else and take your garbage to the dump. Oh, you can't afford the $5 to dump your trash every time you go? Then do what I used to do and fill a plastic carrier bag with your trash and then throw it away in city trash cans/ dumpster every time you go into town for food. And I know that you eat because because meals on wheels doesn't exist this far out, and gee, there are an awful lot of cigarette packets and chip bangs lying around...and they don't fall out of the sky! Instead of letting those carrier bags decorate your trees, use them to throw away your trash! Hell, USE ALL THOSE BOTTLES AND CANS that are littering the place to redeem CRV- I'm sure you'd get enough money back to pay for your dump run.

Small children + rusty barbed wire+ broken glass = not toys! What costs more, filling your truck up with all that dangerous material and spending the $5 to go to the dump ( cost the same as what you're smoking!) or taking your child to the hospital because he has tetanus/gangrene and you're unemployed, have no insurance, and will get pulverised by medical bills.

If you need to have all that scrap in your yard, give it a function, at least! That pile of nail filled 2x4s can be cut into smaller chunks for firewood. Those old posts can be used as a fence or to support your sagging wall. Be inventive so that at least the scrap is being used to make your house more effective as a living space rather than a refuse space.

Just because you live in a trailer doesn't mean you can't have pride in creating a home. And the thing that kills me the most is that MOST OF THESE TRAILERS HAVE DISH SATELLITE!

Yes, they choose to NOT remove their trash, to NOT care about the hordes of rats they are breeding, to let their homes decay into squalid living conditions, but CHOOSE to pay like $50 a month or so to watch 17 and Counting on TLC.

PRIORITIES?!?! Can you not also use that money to buy a window for your trailer so that you don't have to keep using that piece of plywood you found? It will keep it warmer inside and stop mould from taking over! Can you not use that money to buy a broom? They sell them for a dollar at the dollar store. It will help keep the rats, skunks, and opossums from spreading rabies to your child!

There actually does exist a world that doesn't revolve around TV. Books from the library are FREE. Hell, if you're shady like me, you can steal magazines from laundry mats (you don't have to use the laundry mat, just take it's reading material). Spending the night knitting is FREE, and you can get cheap needles and yarn from all those charity shops...it might make quitting METH a bit easier while providing hats, scarves, blankets, etc to keep you warm. Functional!

As much of a liberal hippie that I am, I still believe that people should take responsibility for their choices and to make the best out of life when it starts sucking. But it seems like it's the people who don't even care enough about how they live who make the biggest sob that life is against them, that the government doesn't do enough, and that their trailer of vile drudgery is the fault of anyone but themselves, who really piss me off. There is always help available, but you have to have the incentive to take it. Stop blaming others for your mistakes, and start using that energy to work towards a productive future. You might not have money, you might be living in a second hand trailer that had seen it's better days 30 years ago, eating tinned food from a food bank and wearing someone else's hand-me downs, but you have nothing to be ashamed about if you've worked hard to turn your situation into the best option available. Choosing DISH tv over basic sanitation is NOT an example of the best available option.