"NINE hours and 47 minutes,"

   the woman in the Daisy Duke's told.  She gulped down straight tea, no sugar, on ice, drained the Pepsi cup of the stuff, crushed it and chucked it on top of a pile of trash.  She crossed the parking lot amidst unblinking eyes, tugged at her ponytail holder and her hair fell down all around her shoulders.  She put her Dragon's Tail ballcap back on.  Wiped a backhand across her lips and picked up the racing flags. 

  It was true, that two guys with perfect hair had gone from Chapel Hill to northah New York to try and help somehow.  Between people on strike! and bad attitudes peoples' bloodwork all over the State was being held up.  "Maybe indefinitely," a male nurse slumped down on a hunk of logseat.  The two guys and a referee-type making sure no funny business had made it back in nine hours and forty-seven minutes.

  The Mustang purred to the quickly  drying Baptismal engine bath.  A splash of water left.  And a young girl admonished, how dare you waste water.  Then she donned a plain red ballcap and waved a little American flag on a stick like she was lettin' 'em loose.

  It wasn't racing on the Dragon, but something called an Autobahn.

  Oh my God, the balding guy was still mouthing at the sight of his very academic "girlfriend" in such short, well-worn, cut-off jeanshorts.  Between that time-of-the-months and still-beer-smelling ruined outfits, she'd ended up with the hottest outfit, swear to God.  "Even on you," the jeanshorts' owner hissed.  "Don't listen to the Cougar," a guy in a dress polo and not too much gut urged the woman to get out of the car Squiggles. 

  And it was true, and not really a "secret" so much as a don't tell everyone

  "Some guy's giving out fifty cents a lap to scholarship of choice!!!!!!!!" The wife overheard a kid hollering.  "He's not a guy," she turned and blew air through her lipstick'd lips and shook her head in little no, no's this can't be rights.  "He's MY old man," she dramatically thumbed herself like a peacock spreading tail.  Nobody said anything.  "And that was only supposed to be for OUR son." 

  A woman in sunbonnet and swirly peacesign printed skirt went to the woman.  "Something wrong dear?" At that the show dissolved and the woman burst into tears putting her hands all up and all over her welldone makeup eyes.  Another woman with a clipboard and sporting tubesocks with Sharpied-on stripes came over and put the clipboard down on the hood of a car, and took the woman's head into her bosom.  The driver of the car in front of which this was playing out, got out, heels hard on the pavement, and brushed the clipboard off the hood.

"They have to want to."

  While some of us were having the opportunities to try-out different positions (all beginner level, apprentice-style) with various American services and private sector jobs that summer, there were also kids that were towing families from place of abject poverty.  Or trying to.

  "I can't even tell you how cool my life is now," the scraggly guy told some people in a parking lot.  

  "'Cuz you found Jesus cuzz?"  A less scraggly but meaner boy about the guy's size sounded serious and then would burst into cackling laughter.  The scraggly guy sat back down in the shade.  Put his head on his knees and his hands clenched at the grass beneath the tree.  "I didn't find Jesus asshole," he yelled in the direction of the pot smoking peers.

  "Dude, nobody and I mean nobody wants to hear about it." 

 Aaaaaargh, the scraggly guy expressed his frustration. 

  "Actually, I do." A larger than scraggly but gorgeous girl put a stack of reading materials close to her chest like a breastplate shield and stood in front of the scraggly guy.  "Iaready toll you it all." 

  The social worker guffawed.  "Before you blew me off yesterday?"  The scraggly guy nodded, plucked two fists full of grass and threw these into the air.  

  "I met somebody I want you to meet." 

  "Like sharing?  I doubt that'll help me stay clean!" 

  The girl put her head down slightly and shook the misunderstanding off with a graceful smile.  "Actually he's a Chief." 

  "Of what?" 

  "An Indian tribe not from here." 

  "Don't you mean Native American?" 

  "Yes, I do.  Around here the two words are interchangeable, mostly." 

  "Don't you mean three words?" 

  "Yeah, I do." The social worker unfurled her arms and looked through her reading materials until she found a list of meeting times and speakers.  She'd snagged a few copies and held one out to the scraggly guy.  He stood and took it but didn't read it, put it in his back pocket.  "I would suggest

  "I'll read it later.  Jeeeeeez." 

  "Going to say; not hang out near old friends." 

  "Not friends.  Douschbags." 

  The social worker visibly closed her mouth and didn't respond. 

  "A brother and his friends." 

  "Want a ride somewhere else?" 

  "Not in the, what'd you call it? Toddler car?" 

  She'd actually been overheard calling it that.  Some of us were looking for silver linings despite all the changes to program and heavier personal costs involved in work we were passionate about, but.  She had a little car.  Tiny car like a tiny home.  We all took turns sitting in the backseat and telling what it made us feel like.  More than one of us decided on "toddler".  A more creative person amongst us talked-out how that could be advantageous for a shy social worker.  She'd drew in a breath and said, "I'm not shy." 

  "Yes yah are," a long time friend of hers countered. 

  "I said, I'm NOT." 

  "But YOU ARE." 

  "Am not." 

  "Anyway," another of us said, "Even though it doesn't pay much, I want to keep doing the forest fire fighting." 

  "So, you're not preggo?" 

  "Apparently not." 

  The group of girls didn't interfere with any of these "besties" chats happening in a parking lot.  There was something socially formal established about that even though we hadn't said so out loud.  It was like letting the guys help open a can of corn that was stuck, or, show somebody how tires have PSI's on them and not flipping out.  We were trying to cut down on generic, not much real reason, lambasting everyone and everything.

They'd gotten off a bus that

  ran on vegetable oil and recycled pee and poo.  The few people that were lingering past grab coffee and uselessly rehash how-to hang insulation under a trailer..."It's called skirting.  What we do to the homes.  Ya ready?"...weren't paying attention to the new arrivals like they were rock stars.

  "Really?  On poo?" An older middle aged guy drinking half coffee, half bottom shelf whiskey asked the "prettiest" amongst them.  A bruised top skin from a health check up hand swatted at a fly in the face as he stood near the back of the bus.  It had sort of been a group decision amongst the retirees that you never know, one might want to shack up for the colder months that had gotten this guy "a finger of confidence" and the "duty" of checking out "the new people". 

  Robbinsville, N.C. on a summer Tuesday morning.  Young peoples' pickup trucks and minivans parked to the sides of a grocery store parking lot, people having teamed up for the average 20-125 mile rides to work and family.  Crew chiefs like convoy beacons checking out the whys of not here and deciding 'nother chance.  It is and isn't a coordinated community effort to get the day going.  When someone is missing you'd only have to ask two or three others to get hintimated at as to really why.  "They were really into each other at the end of last year.  Catch my drift?" An everybody's Mom nods head, flips a travel coffee mug shut.  Drives off, not on a hunt.

  The on-poo bunch have come from way up north in Massachusetts somewheres.  But the whiskey quickly soured the man's breath and a horn blowing let's go, let's go curtailed getting too much information.

  Some cardinals flit between mailboxes.  American flags both sides of the road.  The knee-high roadside weeds crackle and buzz with summer bugs.  It's Thursdays and Friday mornings that weekend eventsters prep to make money on their two or three big weekends in Summer.  Even a kid can make a buck with a crowd veneer on local.  

  Phones go in and out of service.  And on both states' sides of The Dragon people practice run.  Sportsters and trucks with growling engines take the eleven miles in stride; no stress without photographers and scouts; less harangue by parents hoping young people stay on track; and distance from the challenges tourism poses to wallets.  A motorcycle roars alive, unseen but rumbling somewhere around a dam.

  A woman had giggled like-a-girl-again and straightened a sweatshirt getting out.  Some people in the mountains trade outdoor spaces and rents to ease the burden of seasonal work.  Others set right here where we are for the whole year while visitors come and go.  Ragged, faded dollar store seasonal lawn flags are changed out for fresh, some years, and some years, not.

  The lakes sparkle in full-on sunlight creeping towards late morning, God's glitter, we used to call it.  Eyes just barely able to take it all in so's I remember.  "It only looks like I'm staring at that nurse's all day," the man's grin spreads his fox personality in the direction of his older-now daughter.  "I reckon I'm thinking of all this nature." His arms lifted and he pulled it towards him, all of it, like a sponge sucking up water. 

  Like trees losing leaves, each season brings people-change news.  Not all of it is "good" and for caring people sensitive to how a prison stay, for instance, effects remnant family, some of it hits hard.  Most of the social news is taken with a healthy dose of salt since some of it's rumor and some of it's tainted by mean-spiritedness. 

  "Whose business is that, you advertising?" A wrinkling woman snides without engaging.  "Young snots," she declares and goes back to sipping her icewater.  Her not smiling doesn't mean she doesn't call some people honey but her poker face helps keep tendrils of group separated.

  "Don't care," someone else warns of a rough-looking bunch outside of a bathroom area.  Talking like, Let me get my asshole back in place and I'll let you know 'bout that, regarding a next leg of road.  "Ain't never did about nuthin'," another somebody throws a line.  Nobody bites.  People grunt and shake numb arms and legs.  Then a leathery guy gets to the very bottom of braiding a long brown and gray chunk of hair, "If'n I din't give a crap, I wun't look like this." 

  "Whatcha mean sweetie?" A leather-vested and graying faded sports bra'd woman asks the man.  Her tone is gruff even though she's being tender.  He explains.  "We's rode four hundred miles or so since whatever day it was before yest'day.  At about 'leven cents a mile, that shood be about a million dollars.  Shood be able to lay off." 

  "Sumin' tellya to not relax?" 

  "Not sayin' such." 

  "Whaddaya sayin'?" 

  "If I din't not give a shit 'bout kids I wun't look'n like such." 

  "Sumin' say sumpin' 'bout how you look?" 

  "Saw." The man tucked a worn feather into the slight furl at the end of his braid and worked it up into the honeybread "x"s like tucking memory flowers into a book. 

  "There mirrORS in men's?" 

  "Shit no 'un, not since," his voice trailed off. 

  "Where'n then?" 

  "A girl." The man pulled at the sagging butt of his winter jeans. "In her eyes," he said. "Then I saw." 

  "Honey, somebody else lookin' don't mean not a thing." 

  "Prolly true I reckon so." 

  A young woman came storming out of the scrawny bushes in front of the fishing pond like a baseball diamond of first base, second base, and onward to preggo.  A heartthrob of a young man followed but threw down his fishing pole and crossed his arms.  "THAT ONE'S IMPOSSIBLE!" He told the rest area. 

  The storm-brewing faced girl stopped midstompin' off.  She didn't turn around because the tears were like a Bermuda thunderstorm on a moped ride.  Hurts and feels good in a hard way, same time.  "He didn't touch me!" She declared to the rest area. 

  "Whoo'n those?" The braid guy had got off the picnic table seat, crossed his arms, and was tapping a booted foot--no scuffs, to find out fast.  The heartthrob picked up his pole with dried leaves now stuck in the saddled hook and line.  "NEXT!" He demanded.

  His Daddy had won 'em in a bet, the young girls, but before that could be sanely explained a pair of rocket cycles with skeletal "brides" aride had drove in front and center.  "They ain't living," a gap-toothed hottie guy said to the shocked and awed.  "You're shitting me?!" A geeky girl who hadn't smiled for the first half of the summer broke into a beaming ray of sunshine out of cloud and dropped a headlamp she was fixing.  Was given a business card, handdrawn, saying The Hub, as she got closer then threw a battery at the skinny bitch.  The man in front ducked out of the way, but the AI gal-thingie didn't flinch.

It was getting ugly.

  Some of us young people rose in the ocean waves crashing like froth.  Authentic--yes, glamorous--no.  Besides being boomed and busted by the American cycles and not having any real security, we were bundles of emotion and energy.  Between the menopausal middle agers and the difficult elders and every sort of "traditional" gone or going weird, some of the Cherokee men and women called for extra meditation and bonding.  Many got kind of sucked into not walking away.  

  "But I'm not thrilled about any of this," one Cherokee woman said.  She'd managed to eek out a living in a full-time-job-necessary environment while being decidedly shut out of automatic benefits and job security often being told keep at it, it will change.  Like she might do the right favor or....I hesitated to finish the sentence.  A Cherokee man who'd taken time to read some of my writing knew I was having a hard time writing "truth" without being harassed as the messenger.  His hand lingered over re-packing some dollar store groceries but when I didn't finish my sentence he asked out loud, "Kissing the right, probably white, asses?" I nodded yeah. 

  "Why did you bring all our food up here into the forest?" A woman asked as she completed the walking-in with duct-taped shoes and newly carved-on walking stick.  "Why not?" The man asked back.  The woman sighed.  "I thought we were going to," her words fell away and her eyes filled with tears which the man did not see because he'd put a rip in a bag of macaronis and busied himself picking up dropping out macaronis.  "Just go back to normal?" The man asked. 

  A boy, small, but like a little man, came and sat at the pinic table.  He watched the man spill out more macaronis to pick up.  Weathered labor hands seemed to decide which macaroni should be picked up next and then next.  The woman just stood there.  The evening sounds of the forest were beginning to rise.  "If we move away, we may not come back." The man said more to the macaronis than anyone specific.

  "Because you gave up a long time ago," one man said to another man.  The beer cans were in a descending order of really crushed to barely crushed but the man's can do mood was clearly ebbed away.  "At least they're not in the river," the other man had declared regarding progress to a fellow forest worker just checking in, and going home. 

  A forest messenger held up the relay to check in with some of the women and children.  She stood, mohawk hairstyle slightly sagging for the afternoon's thundershower, and one kid hollered out, "MOM!!!!". Other children made way from imagination and invented activities towards the figure waiting.  "Wow." A thin small girl said.  "That's some hairdo," a brother finished the sentence.  Our mom made way to the relayer.  "Do I write it down?". 

  "You can." 

  Mom dug out her Astronaut pen and scissors from a sagging back pocket.  "No paper," she told as she was remembering using the last of the looseleaf for starting a campfire and a songwriting session.  "What is the message?" The relaying woman asked.  Another mom with the feet part of her stockings cut away and feet dirtying walked over.  "She wants to know if her menfolk are okay," she said.  The brother smiled bright and glamorous and looked at our mom and said, "I'm good.  Can't you tell?!" Mom smiled too.  "Yes, I can.  But I haven't heard from my other, uh, menfolk." 

  "She has many." A Cherokee mom also walked up. 

  "And what part of the Forest are they staying in?" 

  Mom dug around in more jeans pockets and found scraps of paper but was tear-ing up and so the barefooted woman in the business suit skirt put her hand over the scraps and told, "She misses her husband." Sherry nodded.  A couple tears plopped on her blushing cheek.  These she wiped away after stuffing the scraps back into her pocket.  Her girls smiled then, okay.  

  Nearing the Appalachian Trail the amount of wetted-and-dried paper towels and wet wipes was considerably less than in the campgrounds.  A skinny guy in a colorful nylon jacket like a horse jockey's came down out of a very tall pine tree.  His rock climbing shoes and chalkbag were zipped-in between the jacket and his bare chest.  He tucked a small but stealthy pair of binoculars into one of his pockets.  "HARK! I hear the angels have been singing," he said to the relay messenger.  She took a leather pouch out of her raggedy pants waistband.  Unrolled a little rolled pile of small dollar bills and licked a finger to count out twenty-three dollars.  "Groceries." The man asked, "Mostly salad?" And the woman snatched the money back.  "I'll find someone else." The man pulled out a twenty from the not binoculared pocket.  "Your B-eye." 

  "Your kids need their own food to keep staying," she pointed chewed down dirty finger nail at a hand-drawn map, "There." The man's eyes flashed wide open, then brow furrowed.  "You found them?!" 

  "No message." 

  "But, did they look okay?" 

  The mohawk somewhat bounced as she nodded.  The man gave her the twenty dollar bill and leapt a good four feet from ground onto tree trunk.  He shimmied to a remaining low, thick branch and sat his butt there.  "Practicing," he told me.  I shook myself from just gazing.  "Do you do it professionally?" 

  "Right now there are only some contests." 

  "I think I saw one announced in the newspaper." 

  "There's a newspaper?" The mohawked woman asked.

  "Sort of.  Funny story really.  To hear tell because of the gas prices and all that, we had to relay a bunch of had-beens to produce a few sheets worth of 'area' news." 

  "Had-beens?" 

  "Cha.  Had-been actively literary but when the economy broke a lot of people suddenly just had dreams but no money." 

  "Same with us outdoorsy people," the man finished unpeeling a fruit rollup ans let the wrapper drop.  "You stop that!" The woman said.  I went closer to the tree and swiped the trash up.  The man let half a fruit rollup wrapped in a dollar bill fall out of the tree.  "It's all yours Eve.  If'n you want it." I looked up quizzocally at his now swinging feet.  Hard muscles like ballet people I'd met in New York City.  Then I left it there and started to walk away.

  A clanging could be heard before we got to a mancamp.  The woman with the mohawk flapped her hand twice on my shoulder and pointed with her head that I should stay back.  I fell behind maybe twenty, twenty-five feet but found a hiding spot near the entrance.  The relay messenger walked the length of the campground area, came back to the entrance, pulled up a pantleg and removed a small bundle of mail-looking materials including a Time magazine.  Then she went back in and matched a list of numbered "messages" to campsites.

  Without being able to hear, my mind matched up the image of the strange-looking person talking with various men with how it might have seemed as "diplomats" checked-in with various stalled fighting tribes.  The woman made her way towards the clanging, a site in the middle.  A man put down a hammer he'd been using on an anvil and stood but didn't leave his stool.  The messenger handed him an envelope.  He slumped back onto the stool and clearly was hesitant to open it.  He asked her something.  Then she asked him something.  He pointed with the envelope to another man and a small boy.  The taller of the two's eyebrows went up and he pointed at himself like a questionmark.  The woman chewed the inside of one side of her lips.  Then went towards the pair.  The older quickly sat down in a plastic lawn chair with three good legs and one leg busted like it had a folding knee.

  The small boy looked at his Daddy and crouched into almost sitting down too.  "Are you Mr. Lane?" The woman asked.  The man slowly nodded.  The messenger woman slightly bent over and hugged him.  Then stood and sent the missing you's.  She started to step away and the small boy stood up and took her hand.  The father asked him something like, what are you doing?  To Mom the boy told.  The Dad showed him his lap and sighed, still waiting Son.  The small boy blew out a breath, let go of the hand, and climbed into Dad's lap.  The messenger patted him on the shoulder and then tossled his short hair.  The boy smiled.

"What are YOU doing here?"

  The woman scrambled upright from relaxed (no bra) futzing with the campfire and her hands instinctively pulled up a bed sheet in the air.

  "My God." A short balding man said in an end-of-the-world-again tone as he looked the two other men up and down.  They were covered in fishing gear from head to toe.  One was eating an apple in three bites from a stash in a fishhook bag.  "Are those real apples?" The woman ignored the perfect hair guy and padded her bare feet over to the taller man.  "Ah-hah," the man held the core way up high over her head.  "Real as sugar sugar." 

  "Did you two?" Perfect hair guy let a slight intake of shocked breath finish the question.  "Is that why?" He made crazy person all messed up hand gestures all above his head in regards the woman's hair. 

  "Real real?"  Everyone ignored perfect hair guy whose fishing hat, still with fold marks, was hanging on the strap of a caught-fish basket.  The woman glanced at him and rolled her eyes.  "That basket is for Bass.  Did you catch any?" 

  He ignored her then.  "My God." The balding man said again. 

  "You; stop the spinout into stressville," she pointed a crooked caked in marshmellow stick at the balding man.  "No one's doing it here," she looked at all three men and the women and children milling about the campsite.  "No tents?" The taller man asked and an appleseed popped out of his mouth and stuck on a big rubber boot.  "We didn't sleep here." 

  "My God." Balding man said a third time.  "I was just about to ask." 

  The damp and smokey night had been a mixture of screaming, running and hiding, and tending coals that weren't beer-pissed on and covered in time to go toilet paper and chomped-on hamburgers.  The camping area itself was best broadly defined as "controlled chaos" and "summer circus".  Not far from the women and children but having quiet time and five minutes peace and privacy were a mélee of handicapped and elderfolk.  All of us in various states of mind and ability to speak about chips falling where they may.  

  Honest Americans surfing the crush and pinch between boom and bust.  Economic downturns and little rises like stairsteps effect the middle class and the working poor sort of about the same.  But for anybody somehow marginal to "security" there's literal need of shade while people see what to do.  And absolute surprise to see you again. 

Collective call to action,

  sounds like, when Hannity revealed that sex trade monies have surpassed drug trade monies.

  We were shocked by the amount of dealing in children and young people in the 1990's.  Totally floored.  And as women, we knew, what a difficult topic/reality/problem bad economy makes for people as commodity.  While some saw the political flip as rah, rah deal is done let the money rain down on me, others looked around at our horrifying selves.  It was hard not to get depressed.

  For a lot of women the topic of "sex" is taboo.  It brings up a lot of other topics too...like respect and love and kindness.  Brings up issues regarding principles and perfect lives too.  And back then we sort of gendered around the topic of sex trafficking.  Men/Women.  A lot of work was done to help as many taken advantage of as possible.  And on the whole our efforts did make a difference.

  When I turned to the Bible about this devastation to humanity I found Acts 9.  It takes a lot to change.  Sometimes that's little by little, and sometimes it's God (and nations of God, under God, God-based) that makes the change.  Keep the faith, a lot of people are working to better life.

Summer's mix of fence and wildflower

  Ever after big political change it feels extra weird to visit.  Lines had been drawn, footings fought over in the ways our nation defines and redefines ourselves.  Friends and foes have to come back around to a civil decency.  And a lot of people worry the dividing lines between that was okay then, but now it's a crime.

  Part of the mystique about East T'see and WNC is how we survive onward regardless of top-down politics as a bunch of fiercely independent people and "community" that defines us as an area of the United States of America.  There's always been kindhearted people who've no problem explaining logic to the more fantasy-motivated amongst us.  Sometimes that's same old shpeil to neighbors, but sometimes it saves youth from lethal mistakes, brings a human touch to business, and sparks something in visitors' hearts that will help them and our Country when they go back to different kinds of American places and spots in the world.

  Even not liking everything about an administration or someone with strong views isn't cause to disrespect.  It makes us all dig deeper for authentic and liveable.  The mountains being solid makes this principle so.

2025 resume

 Lara Lynn Lane

1106 Heathwood Dairy Road

Apex, North Carolina 27502

919-607-3859          lane36266@gmail.com

 

     Hi.  My name is Lara and this is my resume.  I do carpentry, painting, and landscaping work by trade, but I’ve also maintained sales and service jobs to secure my financial well-being all year long.  This early summer I re-did a family’s outdoor porch which had gotten some rot and needed some TLC in terms of its screens and stain.  That was in Candler, NC and the reference is Kellie P.    828-582-9510.

     Over the winter and spring I worked two jobs.

Days Inn, 2551 Smokey Park Hwy, Candler, NC.  Managers, Jim and Mandy.  1-866-665-2031

     I was the Breakfast Person.  I served breakfast to hotel guests.  And I was the Supper Cook, server, and kitchen clean up.  We served 8-15 guests daily.  I was able to work with Manager Jim to plan meals and keep the kitchen stocked.

Mapco, 2515 Smokey Park Hwy, Candler, NC 28715.  Manager, Misty.  828-365-6122

     At Mapco I was a cashier, stocking and cleaning person.  That location is right near I-40 so we stayed really busy as a convenience store in addition to selling gasoline.  Mapco also sells a lot of Lottery, beverages, and has gaming machines and pizza, so the workers are doing customer service in addition to tending place.

     In the fall of 2024 I did a lot of camping and brushed up on my Wilderness skills.

     In the summer of 2024 I was in Knoxville, TN and worked as a Cook and Server at Sonic, 5003 Millertown Pike, TN 37917.  Managers, Jennifer and Adrian.  865-525-9551   Very cool place to work!  Fresh fast food, upbeat pace, and a variety of stocking and cleaning tasks.

     During that spring I’d worked for Shoney’s, 4032 N Broadway, Knoxville, TN 37917. Manager, Trish   965-687-5432.  As a server I was very good with customers and as staff I was very helpful with keeping the restaurant cleaned and the dining room stocked.

     I had been living in Apex, NC (near Raleigh) with my Mom and Dad for quite a while before moving to WNC/East TN.  There I was a dishwasher at Eggs Up Grill, 1421 Kelly Road, Suite 112 , Apex, NC 27502.  Manager, Krystal.  919-267-4445.  Awesome food!

     In Apex I also worked at Food Lion, 1777 W Williams St, Apex, NC 27523.  Managers, Tony and Gladys.  919-362-1986.  I was able to try many roles at the grocery store—Receiver, Front End Closer, Register, Center Store Stocking.

     During the time that my mom was ill and passing I worked at KFC, 1403 W Williams St, Apex, NC 27523.  Manager, Andrew.  919-303-7997.  An awesome crew to work with during a difficult time for me.

     From March 2021-February 2022 I was an Assistant Manager of a Thrift Store raising money for Alzheimer’s Awareness.  I worked with Manager, Crystal.  Guardian Angel Thrift Store, 710 Laura Duncan Road, Apex, NC 27502.  919-303-8180.

     And from 2018-2021 I worked at Lowes Home Improvement, 1101 Beaver Creek Commons Dr., Apex, NC 27502.  Store Manager, Brian Brannock.  919-303-4200.  There I worked to improve our Pick Up In Store services and in the Millwork Department selling product and installation services.  This I found similar to bidding carpentry jobs.  I very much enjoy working with clients and getting jobs done well.

 

 

"Personal issues."

  An older woman in charge of many jobs and properties deemed most "activism".  Some people were shocked.  "What does that mean?  How is inequity a personal issue?" Someone asked outright.  "Your anger is," the woman pursed her mouth closed and let her three words sit on her side of the see-saw.  I'd seen her big smile which was authentic and clearly long in the build so I wasn't worried that her face would stay that way.

  Some people decided then and there to get the fuck out of here.  Like without the sure-win of others as the fuel for the fire they should get to somewhere with more resources.  "Not sure they would've made the best neighbors anyway," someone remarked. 

  One young man started crying.  "What's wrong???" A young woman studying "mental health" dropped her bags and went to him.  "It's all over," the young man groaned.  "It's all over now." 

  "But it's not," the young woman said.  "It's not?" The man sniffled inward.  "Noooo.  A lot of good stuff is just getting started!" She turned then to some of the deadbeat parents who'd been acting interested in "causes" and younger peoples' concerns and threw her arms out into the air like a swimmer getting into the ocean.  "Get gone then," she said loudly.  Mean looks through crack-smoke stained car windows.  Another young man soothed the shoulder of the young man calming his tears and asthmatic breathing.

  By lunchtime the parking lot had thinned to friendlies and undecideds.

"It's not your average Black person

  that wants to kill you." The woman in the Sunday sun hat had electronically rolled down a tinted car window and that's what she said.  "It's not?" One of us white girls asked.  Another car window rolled down.  "They won't survive out there," another woman said around us at the first woman.  "We won't?" One of us asked.  "Not in this heat.  Let's go have ice cream." 

  About half a dozen vehicles pulled into a local Sonic.  People dug out the monies for refreshments.  "You gonna need a hat," I was warned.  I wiped the side of my cold cup on my beet red forehead.  I wanted to hear what these ladies had to say.  They'd each been in different educational courseworks and had met up with others they'd known in Knoxville in the past.  It had taken weeks of visiting and synthesizing actual information for them to talk about trends and possible solutions. 

  Some of the ladies' men joined the crowd gathering to cool off.  While the summer heat had been trying peoples' nerves, that summer in the 1990's there were a lot of people back home and in the area who were adept at mediating.  There'd also been people who'd gained the experience of working for the government, working with service orgs, traveled out of local, and come into using learned skills to better themselves and community.  So while there was a general panic about world money stuff and law and order taking the lead in society, there was also an emerging sense of making where you are (and where you are at) okay. 

  The ladies talking with us that day were social workers and paralegals and journalists but overall big job change and life decisions were the call of the times.  Putting together statistics with real people history was exciting for these ladies.  And they explained stuff like "anom-olies" and "radical-to-average".  They were able to not offend people, mostly, with how they formed up a big picture.  And though they couldn't stop people from being angry, they gave insights that helped people better understand why so angry.

  Their motherlode talk that day seemed to spark inspiration and a reasoning to stick with it--the grind of boring work, not ruining all relationship, not hating America. 

  "But I still don't have to like you," a very differently loyal person said to me as people were leaving to get on with the day.  "Hey, that's cool with me," I said.  And I meant it.  Armed with broad picture and some particulars had me most excited to get on with being professional--carpentry and sales and writing.

"The Khmer Rouge lied."

  Excerpt from First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung

  "The Khmer Rouge lied.  They have won the war, and we cannot go back.  You must stop thinking we can go back.  You have to forget Phnom Penh." Pa has never spoken so bluntly to me before, and slowly the reality of what he says sinks in.  My body trembles with fear and disbelief.  I am never going home...." 

  "As Pa continues to talk, I slide out of his arms and into Keav's.  Pa tries to make my brothers understand the history of politics in Cambodia.  Led by Prince Sihanouk, Cambodia, then a French colony, became an independent nation in 1953.  Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Cambodia prospered and was self-sufficient.  However, many people were not happy with Prince Sihanouk's government.  Many regarded the Sihanouk government as corrupt and self-serving, where the poor got poorer and the rich became richer.  Various nationalistic factions sprang up to demand reforms.  One of the groups, a secret Communist faction--the Khmer Rouge--launched an armed struggle against the Cambodian government.

  "The war in Vietnam spread to Cambodia when the United States bombed Cambodia's borders to try to destroy the North Vietnamese bases.  The bombings destroyed many villages and killed many people, allowing the Khmer Rouge to gain support from the peasants and farmers.  In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was overthrown by his top general, Lon Nol.  The United States-backed Lon Nol government was corrupt and weak and was easily defeated by the Khmer Rouge. 

  "Pa says many more things to my brothers, but I don't care much about politics.  All I know is that I am supposed to act dumb and never speak of our lives in the city.  I can never tell another soul that I miss home, that I want to go back to the way things were.  I rest my head on Keav's shoulder and close my eyes while gritting my teeth.  She softly strokes my hair and caresses my cheeks.

  "'Don't worry, your big sister will look after you," she whispers quietly into my hair.  Next to her, Ma sits on the mat, holding Geak, who sleeps quietly in her arms.  Chou is next to her, focusing on her red-and-white kroma, intently folding and refolding it."

That smacks of Nafta.

  Back when you'd've thought all these politicians just can't stop running.  Endless campaign promises...join us and you will get...

  In parking lots all over the United States increasingly grumpy middle agers guffawed at a more democratic approach "to MY dollar.". Even husbands and wives dipped into bartering as a patch for American goods and services in the hold out against socialism and a global corporate ruining a lowly person's freedom to wake up and make an honest dollar.

  "And we don't want your drugs," more and more young people were literally, non-violently making change.  Even though it was more like a rehearsal in the summer months, it made us stronger come back to school.  The taller of us three girls scrunched up her face and mussed up her hair and wagged her tongue, turned her finger around and around near her temple.  "That's what drugs do to people!" Another of us interpreted.  We moved quietly past the older peoples' cars.  They went to sleep early.  They spent most of the day dialing down what had happened. 

  What had happened to so-and-so; what had happened to family; what had happened to bodies that did and didn't look the same as they used to; what had happened to the world that was definitely not the same.  One older woman cried and cried.  Her daughter repeatedly said, "That is not your job.  Think of your heart." But the woman wetted another whole tank top at how sad it was.  "She's mourning," her daughter told the woman's prospective new boyfriend.  He would come once a day bringing a small plastic flower, a sweet little teddy bear, one day a pen and stationary paper.  At that, the older woman cracked her window covered in a brown and black silky scarf, and you could hear her blow her nose and ask, "He want me to write to him?" He hadn't walked far and he looked at the daughter and nodded emphatically.  "Yes mama.  He wants a letter!  Can you do that, please?" 

  "I'll try."  The window was put back up and gentle wrinkling fingers straightened the scarf.

The woman said it like

  it was a group decision to be made.  "At some point we just stop remembering the bad stuff.  And only remember the good."  Holes in the ceiling were part getting ready for recessed lighting and had partly been made by bullets.  Hands trembled the tea and coffee on the little black server tray.  She'd pawned the silver tray. 

  Grown ups focused wild eyes on taking tea.  Smoothing ironed edges of clothing.  Framing self's body wearing dress shoes, dangling a bracelet on a precise spot of the wrist, seeing another person.  One elderly lady hummed.  Words that might have formed a conversation jumbled into an abstract, unseen but with weight.

  Not much older than barely a teenager, the girl was dressed in a long black skirt, a prim white shirt, and black cardigan.  Before fumbling with a sleeve to bare a key on bakery string the girl put her bubble yum only three bites chewed behind her ear.  She crossed herself in the way of the crucifix.  Slipped the key into the lock and opened the door and shimmied the key back up her arm as she relocked the closed door from inside.  Her hands smoothed the skirt before she opened her eyes and stood as if in the wings of a stage.

  If the grown ups in the room noticed her, no one acknowledged.  The girl went to the refridgerator and using finger as fork, ate two scoops of cottage cheese.  She looked in the cupboard and counted the glassware.  Opened a drawer and forced through a pained look at the plastic silverware.  Her face smoothed strong into resolution and she asked loudly, "Gamah.  Why did I see your tea tray at Yoey Vandersmoot's house?" 

  "Maybe I loaned it to them?" 

  "Like maybe the Titanic never sank?" 

  "I don't know from history.  How was your day?" 

  Instead of answering the girl crossed the room and told her relation to close her eyes.  She took the woman's hands in her own and put them on her hips and then turned in place so the woman could feel the hard object stuffed between her back and the skirt.  The woman drew her hands back to herself.  "I don't want this," the woman said quietly but sternly.  "Put it back." The girl crossed her arms.  "Where you found it.  Put. It. Back." 

  "That will happen tomorrow not this late." The girl bent and kissed the woman's cheek.  The woman ordered, "Sleep."

  Outside, the moon waxing gibbous, came from behind a cloud.  An Italian family's teenage boy made to take up his position beneath the girl's window but this night a tall, skinny, balding man grabbed the teen by the back of his clothing like he weighed no more than a briefcase.  And carried him as such to a cleared space in the hedges.  He set him upright on his feet and asked, "What gives Romeo?" 

  "She is the one.  MY one.  The ONE for me." 

  "Not sure she feels the same." 

  Silence. 

  "And, even if she does, she, ah, oy, she's promised to another." 

  "Noooo." 

  "Yes." 

  "That can't be." 

  "Yes.  It can.  And it is." 

  "No." 

  "Yes.  Capiche?" 

  "A cigarette?  No.  But thanks." 

  A neighbor walking a dog close by stopped the talking. Then the teen asked, "To who?" 

  The skinny man gave no answer as he was rubbing a spot on his stomach.  "Promised?" The teen asked. 

  "Not to a Vandersmoot," the man said through a wince. 

  "But I'm," a car drove by and a mama called out a child's name, two, four times before the sounds receeded.  The car lights had shown the man's bloody hand.  The teen silently urged the man to sit and moved the man's knees into a bent position.  "Whoever you are, you need help." 

  The man waved his words away with the hand not clutching his stomach.  "I will be ahright.  You.  Leave here." The teen pulled a white handkerchief from his back pocket with his wallet.  He gave the man whatever bills were in the wallet by pressing the money and the hankie onto the man's chest.  Then he walked onto the street.

  As it was there was no regular tomorrow.  The tea tray was placed on the floor beside the door as the girl slipped out.  She'd left the key on the string hanging on the knob of a bedside lamp.  She'd neatly folded her CandyStripe uniform and tucked it in between her back and the skirt. 

  "Where are you going?" The skinny man stepped into the yellow lighting of a streetlamp and asked the back of the girl.  She kept walking towards the town.  Once when she glanced back to cross the street, the man quickly stepped into shadow.  She pretended not to see him and kept walking.  Past the closed shops.  Past the hulking quiet library.  Through an alleyway that shaved off a Main Street corner of the walk.  And up a weedy old walkway to the hospital.  The man followed but then sat on a bench to catch his breath.  Sleep overtook the man and an orderly was sent outside in the dawn's early light to see about a man with a bloody hand.

The airports had been swamped so

  the special priest was late.  For months a little group of people willing to learn had been preparing for this.  To learn more about how religions entreat with the supernatural.

  "Would you say The Dragon in their book is really metaphoric of a nation?" The woman held a spiral notebook up in front of herself so she could see her questions.  It looked like a paltry shield.  "Who's she?" A serious Seminary student wondered out loud at a gaggle of people not looking as familiar as they had in the meetings.

  "Please." An aide for the priest tried to create a space around the man.  The priest greeted another woman in the European way of "kissing" both cheeks.  A man in an Irish sweater asked which suitcase he should be looking for on the baggage claim.

  A taller-than-most man explained, "This is not really a political thing.  Not for us." The "us" was as vague as the us at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  "There's been serious trouble at the Seminary, and

  "There has?" 

  "And this man is here to see about that." 

  "He is?" 

  "We'll be having tea at this hotel's restaurant," the tall man started passing out slips of paper with the hotel's information.  Several of the slips were not taken and flitted onto the ground amidst endless feet on the move.

  At the hotel there wasn't much to do.  An Organist was explaining how notes of sound splayed out across lines on paper could make music.  A very staunch member of the Choir stood nearby telling those within earshot, "The children always know."  Nobody asked, "Know what?"  But, a lady teacher did stumble out a little conversation about how grown ups approach these topics with children.  A Church library man who everyone knew to be very feeling made miming clown expressions about the possibility of talking.  

  "We had to settle on being deemed dirty snow." An Army Dad told the mime.  "This was before First Communion for some of them." The mime cupped his ear: willing to hear, and pulled at the air like it was a rope.

While it was important

  to understand the ideologies of the world the matters of "property" were and are critical.  In America the right to defend property was the saving grace.  Europe didn't have the same "gun rights" and was caught in a flurry of decimation to the property issues.

  For a while it was move your feet, lose your seat, mano y mano wit and arm wrestling.  Violence reported could still lead to an arrest.  And because most "petty crime" was connected to "organized crime" people lived in a constant state of being threatened and fear.  That took a toll on neighborly relations.

  "THIS.  IS.  WAR."  Said a woman who'd been hacked in half.  It wasn't until a couple years later that she would say anything besides.  By then she was quick walking on her arms and had had time to shorten her furniture.  Even almost chuckled at having two file cabinets instead of a tall four drawer.  We were still young and hadn't met too many people with such strong determination.  Some of her humor had a lingering bitterness so our Parish priest had the nuns dig deep to find the right Saint to take on for Confirmation.  For Catholics, taking a Confirmation Name is adding more tool to toolbox.  The Saints are for extra prayers and are example of how other humans have gotten through human condition. 

  She'd survived the night "it" happened by climbing a tree.  In our American area at the time violence was as normal for some people as breathing air.  And the ways of violence were fueled by drugs and sex and poverty and a citizenry falling by the wayside.  It was D.C. making the decisions, not us.  It was the most violent winning the battles, not us.  It was a long way from this is war to let's at least stop hurting each other.

  It seemed like many who were in agreement about this.  It went along with the guiding principle that God gave Jesus the job of righteous judgment, not us.  But then as we moved from being a close-knit group to encountering the world at large it became clear that there were many not in agreement about this.  Differing religions and cultures were just as "faithful".

  The woman's head split apart from the woman's body by virtue of an unbending board.  "Exceptional times," a man remarked and then exited the roller derby.  A sleek car's door was opened for him.  And his dark socks and tassled dress shoes could be seen paused on the concrete before being swooshed away from "the perfect crime".  No accountability necessary.

  "He'll get his.  He's the Devil's Man now." A more modern nun in gym clothes remarked in a thick Scottish accent.  It would take months to locate the board with a sword embedded in one side.  It was still stained with the woman's blood.