On food stamp payday, we barbeque, on minimum wage payday we shop at the CP Thrift Store.
And, on each Saturday morning, neighbors come for the Free Food that some local do-gooder Christians hand out. It's all starchy GMO crap with an occasional organic reject from Whole Foods.
Because we live in well-planned manufactured tin cans, we actually have good housing. Quality homes that have features that far surpass our incomes. Our roofs don't leak because we make good use of Kool Seal white roof coat, and lots of UV- resistant tarps. We make good use of no-cost, low-cost repairs and it is good-enough repairs. Our homes are not exactly tight, but they really do hold together.
Many of us live in RVs on rubber wheels so when the earthquake hit at 3:20 a.m we shook, rattled and didn't roll over and didn't fall down.
After the screaming and the cussing we all piled out of our houses like angry ants when the field is on fire. We yelled for each other to make sure we were still among the living and the younger ones jumped up to go bang on doors and make dang sure we were all doing OK.
We have a generator because an RV is a mobile home, literally. We have all the modern conveniences of any American home. An RV is just like a McMansion, only much much smaller. We have refrigerators, and water heaters on demand.
We also have propane tanks to run the heaters and the cooking stoves and batteries to run the electricity inside, if we don't want to plug into the Grid. As long as the water lines hold, we have clean sparkling water.
We know we all depend on tax money from a generous and caring society. We know the disability check and the Social Security check will come. We know the bus lines will come and the streetlights will shine.
Outside in the dark August night we took care of each other -- charged cell phones, made big pots of coffee and shared bottled water. We also broke out the beer and the whiskey because a party at 4:00 a.m. is a Universal thing! We pulled chairs around in groups and in each row of our trailer park we all laughed and gossipped and knew that come daylight, we would have a hell of a clean-up.
As predicted, the sun did rise and as we recovered our sea legs we each ambled home. Each of us so glad our tin cans held together (mostly), and only listed off (somewhat).
The same life we had the day before the earthquake went on as before because for us, each day is a non-cliche new beginning.
On the edges of America, on the borders of the cultures, we have to scan the shadows and look for the daily bread, the place to rest and we do not take for granted that life will be easy. But we do demand that your neighbor is your friend on the spinning earth.
