My home town.

Excerpts from The Journals Of A 21 Century Schizoid Man

I live in a large Midwest town that has at least half a million people. But the people who run it and many of the people, who live here, seem if they came straight out of the 1800s. This is a town of half a million and yet there is no bus system or any other mass transit here in town past 6 p.m. There are Taxis, but they are real expensive and the town is quite spread out. Also the bus system only goes to about half the town.

One real drawback to this lack of transportation is the DUI laws. They are stiff. But here’s the catch. Old Town is a few blocks of popular bars in the middle of downtown. They city constantly promotes people going to those clubs, but the cops sit around and bust people for leaving those bars after they’ve been drinking. Since most people who go there can’t afford a taxi, they drive home. And many end up having DUI’s. Many of the regular customers at some of these bars have had many DUIs.

“After I got my fourth DUI, I finally gave them my driver’s license and told them they could have it,” said a regular in one of my favorite bars. He was about as old as I was and decided he could get by without driving if he let his wife drive him some places, such as the bar.

The people who run this town are some of the dumbest idiots in the country. If there is a new way to do something, these folks just ignore it. While rest of the country was implementing garbage recycling, our city council went out of its way to avoid do any of that. While other towns were looking at controlling growth to make their towns more livable, this town adopted the donut approach to development, with urban sprawl being a hallmark of the town.

“Most people in this town drive SUVs. Only a few lazy poor people drive other cars and they can just live down in the ghetto as far as I’m concerned,” said Mitch
McDonnell, one of the more arrogant city council members     

This town is conservative. It is hard core Republican. One year I was canvassing for a Democratic candidate and one of these fine folks, an old fart with white hair and crooked teeth told me; “Them thar libaruls want to take all our guns away and make every body gay,” Then I worked with this carpenter named Ray, a Republican. He’s a 40 something old fart who often wears steal rim glasses, has slightly gray hair and likes to wear a John Deer hat, slightly tilted.

“People vote Democrat because they want a welfare check rather than working for a living,” he said. Apparently he believed only Republicans hold jobs. He considered all government jobs to be another form of welfare where Democrats get them a job where they only work a few hours a day and get what amounts to a government handout.

Then one day he was bitching because there is only one place to renew a person’s driver’s license.

“It took me three hours of waiting and there is only one office left in town!” he said.

I thought to myself; “You dumb-ass! Did you really think all these people working in government offices didn’t really do any work?”

Then there is that annoying belief that poor people are just lazy and chose to live that way.

“Those people could get jobs if they really wanted them,” Ray said. Of course he had a job and wasn’t looking for one himself.

 Most of these folks believe in guns and god and little else. People here hate unions, love low paying minimum wage jobs, believe government should let rich corporate leaders, whom they worship as royalty, not have to pay taxes or have to be hassled by regulations. They believe they can trust all those corporate leaders to regulate themselves and they don’t need no safety or environmental regulations.

Of course out river water is unsafe to wade in, due to pollution, but that don’t bother these fine Kansan folks too much.

“People here don’t like them tree-huggin’ enviermenalists,” Ray said. “And there ain’t no global warmin’. that’s jest a scam by them thar libaruls who just want to control us with all that socialism and communism.”   

When it comes to jobs in this town, it all boils down to the aircraft industry. There aren’t as many of those jobs as there used to be, however, there are a lot of small companies that outsource the aircraft jobs for minimum or near minimum wages. There are a few other places to work such as Wal*Mart. Those are the lowest paying, lowest benefit jobs in town and if you’re stuck working at Wal*Mart—Well you are just stuck.

Make no mistake about it. This is a one-horse town. It’s the air capital of the Mid-west.

“We hope to have the Ah-hole Airline moving to Wichita,” said Mayor Cal Brewhaa. “This will provide lots of aircraft jobs.”

-And many will be minimum or near minimum wages!

Of course those who don’t want to build air craft can blow it out their asses. Most people with significant career opportunities leave this town—If they are smart.

Then there is the religious aspect of living here. People take their religion seriously.

“What drove you from your belief in God,” said Melba, another co-worker I labored with. “Nothing drove me from God, I just don’t believe in him,” I said.

God was such a reality to her life that she could not believe anyone would seriously not believe in him and the religion she believed in so strongly.