BS: Reflections for a Day

Subject: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 11:41 AM

On the Navy base on Point Loma today, some office trailers were reaching the end of their life cycle. An area around them was fenced off and peppered with signs declaring the space for hard hat-wearers only, and a large four-wheeled front loader with hydraulic rams lifting a heavy-duty toothed bucket was in the process of reducing these office trailers to splinters.

It was interesting to watch as the skilled driver approached with his big toothed bucket and tore out a section of wall, exterior planking shredding, thick fiberglass padding and inside wall panels buckling and tearing apart, floor joists snapping. Bucketfuls of the resultant debris were then lifted high and dumped in a waiting debris-bin on a truck. Probably bound for oblivion and very slow decay in a landfill somewhere.

Smash!! The loader was at it again, tearing a cheap aluminum window out, smashing a door frame, cracking up the planks and supports, and crunching and tearing the once orderly production space into semi-chaotic chunks. The driver wore his safety hard hat, and every time he backed up a sharp bell would intone that he was in reverse, so no-one behind him would be surprised. There was no-one behind him anyway. But, you know, just to be on the safe side. The office trailers were not apparently rotten, but perhaps they had been condemned because the repairs they needed involved extensive plumbing work or some other kind of thing too much for the on-site facilities men to deal with. They looked all right, but used and a bit mildewy.

Watching this exciting piece of demolition work made me think of Marisa. She had come to our door in the little stone house we rented in Guadalajara's outer village of Santa Maria de Teqipexpan, on a small street of cobblestone lined with small but well-built homes. We had put on a sign on the front gate reading "Se Solicite Servante" – Domestic Help Wanted – and Marisa stepped up and vowed she would have the job, and so she did. She managed things very well, cooking odd meals, doing laundry, sweeping up and helping us run our little lives down there. She spoke no English, and our Spanish was rudimentary and inaccurate, so mostly the conversation was done with hand-wringing and telepathy. But we managed.

Anyway, one day we had to get rid of a very large cardboard carton which we had used for moving our belongings in and Marisa stepped up and said she would like to have it. This was several months into our relationship and we still knew very little about her and her family. As it turned out she was raising three children single-handed while waiting for a husband who had gone off to seek his fortune in Gringolandia. His return was problematic. She was still young, no more than forty, wiry, strong, cheerful and kind. And she was making her way in life as best she could. The reason she wanted the cardboard was to fill in the wall or door area in her home, which she revealed was a sort of lean-to makeshift shelter rigged up between two walls of an alley. Her roof was a cast-off sheet of corrugated fiberglass. The cardboard would keep the rain from blowing in, you see. Of course it was hers immediately.

We had had no idea, when she first came to our door, what sort of family life she had, but the more we learned, the rougher it looked. When we went back to the States for our annual trip, to handle accounts, taxes, logisitics and such, we solicited seven huge garbage bags full of excess clothes and utilities from friends. All our friends in the States had some unwanted garments or unused kitchen stuff, and one had a sewing machine in good order. We brought the whole load down to her, which made her year. She was in tears of happiness and thanks, for what had really been little effort on our part – some phone calls and some lugging of stuff.

When we finally left Guadalajara to return Stateside for good, she and all her children were clustered around the van, almost keeping it in place by sheer force of emotion. They waved and smiled and cheered us on, with teary farewells of real affection. Not only they, but all the people we had lived among there, genuinely hated for us to leave, not because we were anything special, but because we had lived among them, and that's the kind of people they were – warm, human, connected people.

I wish I could have brought her one of those panels from that office building, or maybe a whole wall. She could have set her whole family up in one of the rooms, let alone one of those mobile offices – she would have felt like a queen with one of those, to be sure.

I guess the Navy doesn't work that way, of course. But perhaps it should.

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 12:08 PM

Amen!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 12:18 PM

Amos

I envy you your writing talent. Knowing nothing of your background, forgive me if this is a stupid question. Are you an author? You paint pictures with your words and stir the heart (at least mine) with feeling. The 'Cat could use a post like this every day. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 12:27 PM

Dear Guest:

Many thanks for the kind words.

I am a "wannabe" author, unpublished aside from technical and business stuff. I hope to change this soon.

Regards,


A

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 01:42 PM

Publish!

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 01:46 PM

Aw, shucks, Mrzzzy....

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 07:31 PM

Knowing (somewhat) the way the Feds operate, there were probably several notices posted in (obscure) places on the base soliciting bids for purchase or removal, and they had no takers. Alternately, the trailers may have been condemned for code violations so they couldn't sell them.

Wouldn't it be great if we residents of the great disposable society could do what you suggest, without it costing as much to ship what we consider junk someplace as it would to deliver a new unit to your friend Marisa. Not to mention the well-meaning people who would be all over us for giving somebody else our trash.

I remember the locals in Vietnam asking us for our empty artillery powder containers, so they could use them for pipe in an irrigation system. Turns out the local militia commander confiscated than so he could sell them back and pocket what little money they had, but that's another story.

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 08:22 PM

Finding out about sites of need would be a simple matter easily absorbed into the existing massive overhead of wasted manhours and over-capacity comms links the DoD maintains.

And I doubt shipping by Army truck within the continental area would put much of a ding in the budget either.But it isn't art of the culture, intent or desire of our DoD organizations.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 01:16 AM

we could cut up our tires that are a huge problem here and send them by train to Mexico for people to make sandles out of.

I just saw a family of 16 people, many of them adults, in Palestine living in an apartment smaller than mine. By American standards, I live in very modest and small housing...but I swear as long as I have running water and enough heat to keep from freezing and no vermin and am basically safe I won't complain, and I won't try to upgrade but will give the difference to charity...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Mudlark
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 01:29 AM

Thoughtful story, Amos, told in a gifted way. This kind of wantonly cavelier destruction of such useful elements has a lot to do, I think, with why this country may not be thought of too highly in many parts of the world. It is not just this specific demolition but the cultural tone that allows for such arrogant disposal of so much that could be useful.

When looked at from your perspective it seems like it would take so little for us to greatly improve the lot of others while diminishing our own not one jot. A win-win situtation, it would seem. What cultural glitch, what ghost in the machine makes this so difficult?

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 08:22 AM

Here in the UK, similar waste often occurs, but sometimes forethought avoids it.
In the early '80s one of the big oil firms (Shell or somesuch) were re-developing Milford Haven oil terminal (West Wales). The Portakabins used as site ofices and temporary 'digs' (is this word used Stateside? accomodation when working away from home= digs) were poorly looked after, but at the end of their usage still, generally, had four good walls, a floor & roof. Instead of scrapping, the oil firm found some good PR by delivering them to large Scout campsites, where they could be hooked up to mains services and refurbished as temporary accomodation for volunteers doing service work (scrub clearance, pollarding, painting and decorating of Headquarters buildings etc.,)

A nice change!

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 09:08 AM

Nice story to start the day off, Amos...

Sad that we have homeless folks sleeping on steam grates in cardboard boxes and here we have so many types of potential shelters that we destroy everyday. We have fields full of old buses that, I would think, could be turned into portable shelters during the coldest winter days when folks are freezing to death...

Oh well...

Thanks for the well written story...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Reflections for a Day
From: Peg
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 11:13 AM

a beautiful story. I think you should write it up for National Publc Radio, record it and see if they'd come record it in a studio near you!