So, I read Of Human Bondage, written 100 years ago in 1915, about the desperate hopeless-hope of poor people struggling to keep it all together and to get a paycheck.
Death was not a problem, death was a solution. Not having enough food was a problem, maybe the only problem, next to not having a place to sleep.
There were no places to go, no one to help. Not even the church. Maybe relatives, but often the relatives were in the same position.
FAST FORWARD to today. We have a nice young man, age 15, African American, in our basement. He has no place to go.
What do we do? We are 70 years old, we are past our lives of being able to raise children. And yet, the only place seems to be .... reform school (it's like jail).
There's no place to put him where he could succeed. It's 1915, all over again. No social safety net, or at least a totally dysfunctional social safety net that appears to be just as useless as no social safety net.....
(no photo today)
Comments