Part One: It All Started With a Pair of Rain Boots
The events that lead up to the rain boots matter somewhat to the story, I aim to keep this to the point though. Let’s just say I enjoyed a somewhat nomadic existence in my younger days, not that I’m old, but I’m not getting any younger, and I’m at an age where that means something. It was before cell phones, before people were posturing for Instagram and only seeing the sights through a filtered lens and a filtered mind. For me it wasn’t a hobby, it was a lifestyle, still is. Back then, I was a genuine leather tramp, rubber tramping from time to time if need be. I was a hippie and I was a head. I was a community builder, an activist, a Gypsy, a Carny and a college student, I thought of myself as a train-hopper and a tribe-hopper, never a member of any one family or community but a part of many, even the USMC. Oo-Rah! "Your vibe attracts your tribe." -anonymous Back then I was a nomad without a net. Unlike the "influencers" of today with the latest in gear, a pocket full of mum and dads credit cards and a bunch of loyal patrons and followers paying for it all, I had to actually learn how to be resilient and self-sufficient. I wasn't staying in fancy hotels, air b&b's or glamping. I didn't have a brand new van or bus paid for and tricked out on someone else's dime. Unlike the young travelers of today, I had to actually be resourceful and live on the cheap. I've known for a long time, it's not about what gear you have, it's about how you do without it. I didn’t go “home” between jobs or venues, usually, I didn't have one, and liked it that way. Instead, I went and lived in the woods or surfed couches. I adhered to this unsettled lifestyle even after I had my daughter. The two of us had lived in five states by the time she was eight years old. When my daughter was kindergarten age I had tried to move closer to people who I thought might want us around but as it turned out, I was really, really wrong to the tune of my poor daughter finding out the hard way how cruel people can be. But I'll save the story of the wicked grandmother for another day. As time went on we settled longer and longer in each place we ended up. Jobs were getting harder to find, the economy was changing, and by the time she was entering her senior year in High School we had been in one place for almost 5 years, that was a record for us. My daughter was finishing her senior year of High School and I had a decent job at a bank. It wasn’t my favorite job, It wasn’t the type of job I was giddy about, but I always do my best so that I can look back and take pride in my work, no matter what it is. Had you told me when I was a traveler that one day I’d be settled and working at a bank, I would have scoffed quite heartily. I wanted my daughter to be able to go to college though, and I could see that actually happening, it had been the whole point of having been settled for so long. It had been years preparing, getting the right job to afford college and a decent stable apartment. We had it all set up, we were ready for college phase. Enter the rain boots... To be honest, the job at the bank was a real life saver. It was only about a mile and a half walk to work but it was Oregon and rain boots, unfortunately, were a luxury I couldn’t afford at the time. I was saving up...it was just a matter of time. It was my own fault for putting off thinking about it until the rains had already started. It was 2017, I had a good umbrella and stood behind a desk so no one could see my soaking feet when I was at work, until one day, a well-meaning customer caught me on my way in and did. I worked at one of those banks that’s inside of a grocery store, the well-meaning bank customer saw me come in on a particularly rainy day with soaking feet. She made a comment, I made a joke, we shared a laugh and then I hustled off to work. The next day, she came to the bank, waited in the line and came to my teller window with a box. She had gone to a nearby store, right next to us actually, and purchased me a pair of rain boots. I knew straight away that I would not be allowed to keep them, there was a policy. The look on this woman’s face and the long line of waiting people had me remembering another policy though, make those customers smile. “Smile,” after all, was the big fat “S” in one of those cheese-ball acronyms they torture you with during training. So I smiled, extended loads of gratitude, put the box under my desk and tended to the line. As soon as the line was done I grabbed the box, went to my manager in the back room and told her everything. She took the gift, opened it, told me I couldn’t keep it, a fact I had already established, and told me to go on break. Of course all of this was on camera. The next day, without warning or discussion, I was fired for "accepting a gift from a customer." They sent me on my lunch break first, so of course I had left all of my things in the back room. When my break was over, they wouldn’t let me back in to get them though, they just told me I was fired, unceremoniously dumped my things into my arms, took my keys and dismissed me like trash. I didn’t understand. The customer had been contacted and the store as well, the boots had been returned and the woman who had bought them had been refunded. I had spent the time and made the effort making sure all this happened, so I knew it did. Understanding was not to be had however. I had to get on unemployment, during the mediation the judge wasn’t even trying to hide how ridiculous he found the entire thing to be on the part of the bank. It gave me great pleasure when the banks lawyer would try and talk over me and bully me at every turn and the judge would tell him to be quiet and let me speak. I ended up with one year of unemployment to start. My plan was to have another job within less than half that time. The whole thing was a trip really... I didn’t know very many people in that town but I knew people who did. I’ve also never had a facebook account, so when a friend of mine told me to check the towns facebook page on the night of that fateful day, she was disappointed when I told her I couldn’t access it because I don’t facebook. She came over to my house to show me using her account. Within a few hours of my being fired people were getting on the cities facebook in support of me, at least it seemed so at the time. Eventually, they got shut down by the city due to the heavy criticism of the bank and even the grocery store it was in. Someone I had never even met had typed up their version of the story, which was fairly accurate, and started a GoFundMe page to “help out until I could get another job.” I didn't really know how a GoFundMe worked at the time, this woman didn't ask me so much as tell me that she had posted it. People were donating too. The set goal was to raise grocery money and rent money for another month or so to avoid homelessness. Of course once the amount of money raised was substantial enough the woman who had started the GoFundMe took it all and I never heard from her again. I figured I'd be OK, I never asked her to do it in the first place and I could live on very little compared to most. Plus I had unemployment coming in. After just about three months I got a letter saying that due to “shortage of funds” I would no longer receive unemployment and just like that, we were homeless. My daughter put aside the idea of College and we were heading to a goat farm to work for free room and board since winter was coming. I had to think fast, we were homeless rather "all of the sudden" and winter was on its way, it was mid October. We had to donate and/or throw away our lives then. Being thrown away was something we would get very accustomed to, I already was, that's part of the sob story of my past that will be addressed later. At any rate, our dehumanization as a family was off to a good start, it hasn't let up since and we are stronger for it. I had heard of a “transitional tiny housing community” in Eugene Oregon and put in an application, but they had a wait list. As it turned out that wait list would eventually coincide with our time running out at the farm and we'd be able to go from the farm to a place in Eugene called, “Opportunity Village.” But that's another part of the story. Goto Part One B. Let there be Goats...
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Author who quotes other authors...
The world is his who can see through its pretension...see it to be a lie and you have already dealt it its mortal blow. |