There are moments when I think this is ridiculous. That I should scrap it all and just get a menial job, or sell the house for the best cash offer and move somewhere else. The road is tiring, and around here, it's dusty more often than not, and sleep quality is not exactly optimal.
Then there are times when the best available spot to overnight is the WalMart.
I don't particularly detest WalMart camping. Any port in a storm, basically. But it feels so sterile, so artificial. There's no communication between campers; everyone pretty much keeps to themselves, they arrive late and roll out early. And if you arrive before sundown in the summer, the hot asphalt will bake you like a rotisserie chicken. To say nothing of the times when you get up fuzzy headed in the middle of the night and need to use the facilities, walk in, and are greeted by the friendliest WalMart employee ever, and all you can muster is a barely audible grunt as your bladder directs you on autopilot to the restroom.
First world problems, really. But we live in a first world nation, so it is what it is.
But then there are moments, glimpses, that I'm doing something right. I know I'll get better at the process over time; that fumbling over my belongings will be replaced by a slightly more efficient system that's constantly planned every time I meet yet another obstacle I hadn't anticipated. And then when I walk out and breathe in the fresh pine air and look up to the mountains hovering over the skyline, I can briefly forget the asphalt underpinnings of my campsite and remember that this is temporary, and that one day not long hence I'll be heading back to my own bunk, if only for a few days. I am still trying to imagine the life of those who have to do this for months, even years, with no respite (I had a comfy four days at home prior to this trip; and before that, five days in a tent that was a more luxurious retreat).
I have my first hobo sign ready to plant, and will do that as well as sit down and play guitar today. I'm trying to work up the boldness of a busker and just walk in and ask to play, but...still building to that point. I desperately want to head up to the Ludlow Massacre Memorial (14 miles away), but I'm in gas conservation mode, as I have a lot of miles to put in before I roll back home.
If payments come through properly, I very well may be heading to the Mobeetie music festival. I've never been and have long wanted to go, but seldom had the chance.
The Ludlow Massacre was a watershed moment in American labor relations. Historian Howard Zinn described the Ludlow Massacre as "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, Tom, and that is why it is imperative that we know our history. Just as American liberty was won in places with names like Lexington, Concord, and Saratoga, so the workers' liberty was won in places like Ludlow, Pullman, and Haymarket Square.
ReplyDeleteWe are in serious danger of losing those hard won liberties, though, with the attempted Tea Party takeover of America. The workers must stand together or the corporations will beat the fragmented lot of them.
The robber barons may be more powerful than they have ever been, and that makes them a frightful lot to oppose. But we must not bend. SOLIDARITY!