My Take on the Illegal Alien Issue

A long time ago when I was but a lad, the only sources of employment for young people were grocery stores as baggers and stock clerks and fast food. We only had 2 fast food restaurants until my junior year in high school, a Sonic and a Hardees, and only 2 grocery stores a Kroger and an IGA. This made teenage employment iffy and they wouldn't even think of hiring anyone until they were 16, so what did an unemployed teenager do for cash? Well, if you were like me and lived out in the boonies, you hired out to local farmers as a slave. I mowed yards and cleaned ditches and fence lines, all for well under minimum wage, but mainly I worked in the two money making mediums of the South, I "hauled hay" and worked in tobacco. These were the two most labor-intensive parts of the private farm in the day. The large round bales popular now were unheard of in the 1980's. Everyone used the much smaller square bales and while the actual cutting and bailing was done by machine, it required manual labor to get the bastards into a storage area, commonly called a hay loft and usually located in a dilapidated wooden structure called a "barn".

The first stage of this process took place in the field and required 3 major pieces of equipment. First you needed a trailer. This was generally a flat wooden-bedded trailer with open back and sides, but a tall front wall. It was usually in one of three conditions: OSHA's worst nightmare, unbelievably, mind numbingly, freaking dangerous, and containing blackholes large enough to suck in small to medium size galaxies. If you were one of the people riding on the trailer, you usually spent much of your time watching for holes, gaps, nails sticking up, weak spots, and miscellaneous things to cause you to break, cut, puncture, or otherwise damage your anatomy. The second piece of equipment was something to pull the trailer. Usually this was a farm truck that was held together by bailing wire and duct tape or a tractor that was kept together and running by a mixture of rust, dirt, and shear will-power. The farmer paying the cash drove this item. The last piece of equipment was the manual labor. This generally consisted of teenage boys who couldn't find any other work, alcoholics who couldn't find any other work and usually took part of their pay in beer, potheads who couldn't get any other work, and any other farmers that owed the farmer a favor or wanted him to owe them one.

How this worked, first you started the tractor or truck. This involved at the minimum another vehicle and set of jumper cables. The tractors were usually worse, because the tractor was usually one that had been in the family for generations. This valuable heirloom had invariably been stored under the drip of the equipment shed roof for years. Quite often the rust was the most attractive feature of the machine. Most of these things were so old they didn't have electric start, so you had to manually crank them. This involved a metal rod that looked a lot like a tire iron, which had usually been lost or broken 57 years ago, but something had been found that worked just as well and only made the process about 29 percent more dangerous. Turning an internal combustion engine over enough to start by hand might only be a light workout for The Rock, but when you have a group of 15 year old boys, 60 year old men, and 90 pound alcoholics, it generally involved five or six people jumping up and down on the crank, while the farmer adjusted chokes and throttles, pushed in clutches, and flipped switches all while squinting his left eye, holding his breath, and hoping he'd sacrificed the right animals to the right pagan gods the night before. The rest of the crowd would be chanting every curse word and bit of profanity known to them, and probably learning some new ones, then the motor would catch. The trick to crank starting a tractor is knowing when to let go of the crank. If you don't let go exactly right, the metal bar is going to jerk and whack you in some part of the anatomy you might need later. Then you are going to have to lie in the barn until the hay is in before they take you home or to the hospital.

Now farmers can be divided into categories based on three criteria. How they pay, how they bale, and how they drive in the field.

Basically the first stage of hay hauling involves driving the rig around the field while one group of people place the bales of hay on the trailer and another group stack the hay neatly on the trailer. You want the more experienced people stacking, because there is a trick to it and if it is done badly, you either don't get the maximum amount of hay per load, or it falls off. Both waste time. Also, the higher they can stack the hay the better, to a point. Anyone can set the hay up on the trailer, so the less experienced people do that.

Now, some farmers paid by the hour, which was cool for the worker. Most farmers wanted to pay per bale. If they figured the total bales and divided by total workers, this was okay, unless you have a lot of time wasting problems like badly stacked hay or a barn from hell. Most farmers though, felt the best thing was for the individual to track the number of bales they handled and paid that way. This would seem fair, because the harder workers would make more, and everyone would be encouraged to work more. Except for a few things.

Hay bales come in many forms. Bales of hay are held together by two or three cheap strings. They can be baled tight or loose. You want tight, but not too tight. Tight is good. Loose bales weigh less, but if too loose can fall apart before you get them loaded. They also don't stack very well. If the bale comes apart on you, you loose time trying to put it back together, or grabbing another bale. Not good if you are on the per bale pay system. If the bales are too tight, then the strings can break which is just as bad or worse than falling apart. You also hope the farmer didn't bale them too heavy. Some farmers like to pack them heavy. This makes fewer bales so he has less to pay if on the per bale system. It also tires the workers out quicker though. These idiots were usually the ones that wanted the stuff stacked really high too.

Then you have driving. Some farmers drop it into extra low granny gear and creep through the field making it easy to get the bales to the trailer. Then you have the guys that bounce through the field at 30 miles per hour making you chase the trailer. These are usually the same guys that have the 150 pound, tight baled, exploding hay bales they want stacked 8 runs high.

Once loaded the hay is hauled to the barn. If you are lucky, the barn is in decent shape. If not everything you had to watch for on the trailer goes triple in the barn, plus add spiders, snakes, hornets, wasps, angry rats, dogs, cats, barn swallows, pigs, etc. Some farmers had these conveyors belt set ups they could hook to the trailer. A couple of guys would stay on the trailer and drop bales on the conveyor and it would carry the bales up in the loft. Other people would carry these over to where the rest would stack it. The number stacking versus carrying increased the higher you went. If there was no conveyor belt, the poor suckers on the trailer had to "throw" the bales up, which increased the stain on bale and string. It also wore out the guys on the trailer and increase injury risk for the targets, I mean bale catchers.

Now a quick description of hay for those that have never encountered it. It is basically dried out weeds. It is scratchy and makes you itch. It usually has a dry, dusty smell that makes you sneeze. It is almost always 90+ degrees when you haul the crap in. It is a miserable job, hot and boring. Hay lofts are always shadowy, this is to hide the holes you can fall through. The top of a barn in summer is hot, usually about 110 degrees and dusty. Once you half fill it with hay, then the air is 90 parts dust to every 10 parts air. The temperature goes up to about 630 degrees and the dust coats your sweaty skin. Did I mention hay scratches the heck out of you?

Tobacco is different. Tobacco is an interesting plant. There is absolutely nothing pleasant about it. It is ugly and disgusting in every way, yet people pay money for it. This is how it works.

One or two people can handle a lot of tobacco until it needs to be harvested. You plant it, you how it, spray it with insecticide, keep it cleaned out, top and sucker it (don't ask, you basically break of the bloom on top and pull off little leaves called suckers, that are bad, I don't really know why, but it has to be done by hand.) When it is time, you cut it, spike it. Let it sit a couple of days, then haul it and hang it.

One man can cut and spike, but it is faster to have a cutter and a spiker. One man takes a small hatchet and bends the tobacco stalk enough to expose the upper part of the root, then he whacks to the base of the stalk with the hatchet. The stalk is tough here so it takes some force. This man is bent over a little, so he stands, twists around and hands the plant to the guy behind him. This man has a square wooden stick with a sharp steel cone, called a spike, over one end. He pulls the tobacco stalk down hard, driving the spike through the stalk a little above the base of the root. You want some of the tough root, to hold the stalk together on the pole. If the cutter, cuts too high on the stalk, the stalk splits when spiked, creating extra work later. The spiker puts 5 to 6 stalks per stick. He fans the stalks out, so the pole hold them up like a tepee. This is left out in the field about 3 days to dry, then they are picked up and hauled in similar to hay. The sticks are threaded over poles in the barn called tobacco tiers. This lets the stalks hang straight down. They dry for several months in the barn. When ready, the sticks are taken down, the stalks removed, the leaves removed from the stalks and sorted and baled.

Now tobacco is not nice, the sap is black and sticky, you get it on you and dust and dirt stick to you like crazy. If you get it in your eyes or an open wound, it burns worse than alcohol. It tastes like I imagine horse urine and dirt would taste mixed together. Normal soap won't take it off, you need to sandblast it off. You smell the stuff for a week afterward. It is just nasty. I still liked it better than hay. It has worms that like to eat it and they are icky feeling. It also attracts stinging bugs like crazy. Cutting tobacco works the arms and back out, and I sliced up a few pairs of jeans and my leg once. I know a few people who spiked their hands. Then you have to watch for splinters from the sticks. You also usually end up hanging by your toes on tobacco tier poles 30 feet off the ground in a barn hanging the stuff up.

Neither job was fun, but I did have some fun doing it. Sometimes I miss it while sitting at a desk. I don't miss blowing dirt out my nose for three days though. Now most people use round bales and hay is strictly done from the back of a tractor. We still use square bales for the goats and have trouble finding them to buy. My father raised tobacco until last year. I helped with it some, but come September and cutting, he hired people to cut and haul it. My father has nothing against the Hispanics and respects them as workers, but he doesn't like using illegals, so he tries to hire locally. He could only find two non-Hispanics willing to do the work, despite an unbelievable unemployment rate. I find this true of most of the local farmers. They don't want to employ illegals, but our locally grown unemployed don't want to do the hard labor. In my main job, I can't find anyone under 35 who has any idea what farm labor is. I think this might be part of our problems. A few summers of farm work, and most any other type of job seems sweet.

An Open Letter to the Politicians in the Federal Government

First off guys, I appreciate the money you are giving me and my wife come May. If I understand your intentions, you wish us to go out and mindlessly spend it rather than trying to save it. If we all do this, according to your reason, it will "stimulate" the economy. Now, I'm not an economic expert. Hell, I didn't really even like my economics classes in school. But don't you guys think this is kind of like sticking a band aid on a gaping stomach wound without even applying some neosporine or poking the intestines back in? I mean $600 a person sounds nice, but really, how long do you thing that's going to last. People will spend that quick. You will be dumping money in the economy for a couple of weeks, a month at the most and things will go back to normal. Look, we've all seen the medical shows. The guy who has the heart attack, his heart never starts back on the first shock. You have to electrocute the hell out of his ass to get the all ticker pumping strong again. If the economy's heart isn't pumping, one shock is not going to cut it.

I mean giving everyone who pays taxes $600 bucks sounds good, but isn't it really flash? Aren't you trying to look like you're doing something so you don't get voted out of office, all the while hoping the economy fairy waves her magic money stick and makes everything better. I mean if you really wanted to do something, wouldn't you be trying to figure out why the economy sucks and plug the hole. I'll help.

There are things in life that you have to have: Shelter--rent or house payment, food--groceries, health --medication, other necessary items like electricity and or propane or natural gas, water, pornography, liquor and condoms, ect. To get those things you have to get to work, which often means driving, so you need gasoline. Then you have the things you like, but can live without, the luxury items like movies, nightclubs, eating out, vacations, travel, new furniture, ect. If the necessary items cost more, say because fossil fuels go sky high and suddenly it costs 90 bucks to fill your gas tank, and shipping costs go way up so the cost of food, medication, heating fuel, ect. suddenly goes way up, you just don't have to cash to buy the non-necessary stuff. So now people who's livelihood might be in industries dependant on the spare money may find themselves out of work because people aren't buying pool tables, 4 wheel drive vehicles, new couches, or going on vacation, because they can't afford it. It costs them too much to just get back and forth to work and feed and house their families.

If you really want to stimulate the economy, do something to drop the gas prices. This will make it not cost so much just to go to and from work. I used to spend about $15 a week on gas. Now I spend about $50. I went from a 6 cylinder Ford to a Suzuki lawnmower engine in a box, but still spend over 3 times as much. If it don't cost so much to transport stuff, business will slowly lower the price of stuff back down. This will encourage the average Joe to go back to buying crap he don't need, since he now has some spare cash again. With sales up, businesses will go to hiring back the convenient but non-essential people they laid off when sales dropped off.

My wife and I used to go to the bar or club once or twice a month, eat out at a decent restaurant a couple of times a week, go to the movies or bowling a couple of times a month, and blow hell out of the shooting range on a regular basis. Now, about all we can afford to do is sit at home and watch TV or play on the Internet. Hitting the gym a couple of times a week is now our high point. This really sucks. The $600 you give me will go to paying a few bills a little ahead to give me breathing room. That's all. On the other hand, if you can encourage gas prices to drop, you could save my $30 to $40 per week, that would make $120 to $200 per month I can spend on other shit. If the other shit drops a little in price, I can buy more off it. Plus I am more likely to make that 800 mile trip to visit the old in-laws or the 200 mile one to see the nephews. See, you can stimulate the economy and make my wife happy. That's a win-win situation.

Family Update

Well, if you read my hellidays post, you know my in-laws can be a little less than pleasant to live with. Well, they are now in Florida. Good. Anyway, I have three brother-in-laws. Two of them are my wife's brothers and they both live in Florida. The oldest is planning on getting married soon. He was working for this rich-bitch type helping take care of her pet horses. Apparently if you have enough money you have pet horses instead of goldfish. Anyway, basically he was getting paid a shit load of money, had free board, and was fed a lot of meals along with bonuses and stuff, all for working about three hours a day and spending the rest of the time standing around playing with himself and looking busy. He got his younger brother-in-law on also. The job was easy, but the boss was a bitch. Anyway, they spent the winters on the West Coast of Florida and the summers in New York. This is where the older one met his wife-to-be, although that is another story involving emotions, betrayal, and other complicated shit.

Well, older bil knocks up his girl and they have a little baby girl. Right as the process to move back to Florida is at its peak, younger bil is told to do something by rich bitch. He does it. She leaves, supervisor shows up and wants thing done another way, younger bil bitches enough to show he can't be pushed around, then does it. Older bil jumps down supervisor's throat, they both get fired. Now for the sucky part. Old bil was wanting to get fired. He had been thinking about quitting for a couple of months, then decided he wanted to be fired. Since he is something of a professional asshole, this wasn't really hard, but he took lil brother with him and since younger bil isn't an asshole, but a decent guy I am fond of, this sucks. Anyway they move back to Florida and girlfriend, who was also a horse worker only out of work from having a bun baking, gets a job with horsey type people to support the lot of them. Younger bil moves into the apartment she found for them with them and the two men go through their severence pay.
Girlfriend, who actually seems nice enough, doesn't realize what she's getting into and helps my father and mother-in-law get set up in Florida. Now they've step in it as the creeping in-laws seep into their lives to take over forever. Younger bil goes to school and becomes a licenced security guard at a hospital. Older bil does day labor. Girlfriend takes time off when baby gets sick and gets fired. Older bil and girlfriend decide to move to keys.

Anyway, I told you all that to tell you this. With two-thirds of the group moving, girlfriend apparently after checking with younger bil offered to let my in-laws move into the apartment after they left and, although he claims to have been either insane or drunk or insanely drunk, younger bil agreed and it was a done deal. My mother-in-law took a trip to Canada to visit her mother and brother. While she was gone, my father-in-law broke her car. It's a Ford escort. Younger bil got caught helping him get it someplace to work on. My younger bil also has a ford escort and my father-in-law wanted to take the necessary parts off HIS car to fix my mother-in-law's car before she gets back and finds he broke it. This would have left my younger bil with nothing but his motorcycle to get back and forth to work. And the car belongs to my bil, he BOUGHT it off his father. My younger sil is already proving to be a major little bitch, hoping on girlfriend's computer claiming she needs to do homework, then spending three hours on myspace and slapping her homework together in the last ten minutes before she leaves. Hopefully girlfriend will take pc with her. Younger BIL is in for it. They are already driving him nuts. It took him 19 years to get away and now they are sucking him back in, poor guy. My father-in-law has a way of taking everything over and making it about him. I suggested my younger bil stage a major drunken orgy every weekend and leave satan worshiping and withcraft literature scattered about the apartment. Either that or move in the dumpster out back. I think it is only a two bedroom and with him working third shift, I think that they are planning on putting the little bitch in his room. That won't work, she don't take care of anything and prowls through everything. He would have no privacy. I pity him. I think I would move into the dumpster or fake my death, change my name and move somewhere they don't have horses, like Detroit.

I Finally Figured It Out

Well, I think I finally got it. You see, in my second job, my first chore is to clean two bathrooms at the end of a 5 mile, cross-factory hike. The men's room is usually not a lot of fun to clean. I think it was expanded, because the first half the room is narrower and seems a little newer. The first half the bathroom is only about 1/2 the width of the last half. When you enter the door, you have a trash can, then a large stainless steel sink, then another trash can. Next you have two urinals, then three stalls. When you get to the stalls, my cleaning cart takes up the entire aisle between the stalls and the wall. You then enter another doorway and the second half of the restroom. This area is much wider. The open area has a trash can and another stainless sink, but you have a lot of room. The two urinals are next, then three more stalls. You could park two cleaning carts there and still have plenty of room between the stalls and the wall.

The mystery though is the last stall. Every day, when I sweep, I find a pile of stuff between the toilet and the concrete block wall. It is always there. It generally consists of pieces of toilet paper, newspaper, shop towels, and balled up papertowels. This has always puzzled me, because, although the size varies day-t0-day, it is usually a big pile.

The shop towels could fall out of the guys' pockets when they drop trou, and they could bring the newspaper to read. Toilet paper in a bathroom stall isn't that unusual, but why not just flush it? Plus, it doesn't appear used to the casual glance. But what the hell with the paper towels? Why are they carrying paper towels to the stall with them? The dispenser is clear on the other end of the room.

Well, I got it. They have a man-bird working there. Or maybe a bird-man. You know, a mutant half-man, half-bird. He's nesting, it's the only thing that fits all the facts. The idiot is trying to build a nest to attract a mate and the idiot is doing it in the damn men's room. You'd think the smell alone would make him realize it's a bad idea.

Anyway, I am planning to call the show, Monster-Quest. I think if they come up and set up the motion detection cameras they can probably get some footage of the nest building in action. Maybe even some infra-red stuff. Cool!!!