THE HOUSES THAT RUBES BUILT

THE HOUSES THAT RUBES BUILT

By R.J. Godlewski
© September 27, 2008, All Rights Reserved

     For years during the 1990’s people – friends, relatives, and casual acquaintances – dared to ask why Sara and I were squandering our lives away in small, cramped rental units while others proudly showed off their new split-level homes with the multi-car garages, wrap-around decking, and enclosed in-ground pools surrounded by privacy fences. When I simply stated that we couldn’t afford such luxuries, we were immediately challenged with “Everyone can afford a house today!” Perhaps I could’ve, but I just didn’t feel comfortable with any of the employment prospects that we had then.

    Sara and I had moved out West because we just didn’t like Michigan’s economic future and what we were paying for our three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath townhouse in Auburn Hills took 90% of my income. We both enjoyed life, wanted to be let our spirits soar. To work double shifts just to posses a hollow cavern around us devoid of any furniture did not seem justifiable and so we hopped aboard a Greyhound bus – with two suitcases between us – and relocated twelve hundred miles away to a strange town that we only “passed by” once in our entire life.

    We found our little duplex rental within twenty minutes after stepping off of the bus – though after our new landlady dropped us off back at the truck stop we had no idea on just how to return to our new home in Oklahoma – and proceeded to furnish it with whatever came our way. Sara set to work at a nearby restaurant – as befitting someone with her culinary talents – within the week and I followed two weeks later by accepting an over-the-road truck driving job. The very first thing that we acquired was a refurbished 1985 12” television that Sara set down $100 for out of her first paycheck. It subsequently lasted for ten years. My first purchase was a $50 mattress and box spring that I acquired from a neighbor and Sara used for a month for every day of mine.

    To that, over the course of a few months, we added a couch donated by Sara’s boss (and our next door neighbor), a microwave oven that I found abandoned next to a neighbor’s house and re-wired, and an entertainment center graciously given to us by someone bringing his little daughter ‘trick or treating’ during our first Halloween in Oklahoma. The man had noticed the rickety table we were using and remembered what he was getting ready to toss away and so offered it to us. Neighbors do that from time to time.

    As money built up we added more luxuries to our home – a vacuum cleaner, cable television, and a telephone. We didn’t have a washer and dryer then but we possessed a bathtub and the western Oklahoma weather assured us of dry clothes before we even reached the end of the clothesline. We didn’t have much, but what we had were the makings of a fine home. I decorated our first Christmas tree – itself assembled from the parts of three others – by cutting out the images contained within all of those “free” holiday card samples that seem to clutter our mailboxes. Our home was comfortable, protective, centrally located and reasonably priced. When we lost jobs – as all adults are wont to do from time to time – we could bear the burden without significant hardships. Usually.

    When we finally decided that our options were drying up, we found that we could make another relocation to southeastern Arkansas and still found a nice, quite modern trailer within minutes of rolling into town – quite literally, our archaic U-Haul® truck ran out of gas just before the “Welcome to Monticello!” sign and so we coasted into our new – and Sara’s final – hometown. Our landlord would’ve allowed us to move right into the trailer on day one and even gave us the keys but we felt uneasy over this and so spent the night in the parking lot of Wal-Mart until we could open a bank account and actually pay our landlord for the use of the property. We remained there for four years until I departed seven days after Sara passed away.

    Our amenities increased significantly in Arkansas. I worked for General Electric as a software systems technician after having returned from a brief stint in New England aboard a fish processing vessel. My new Chevrolet Impala had nearly every option available. For a couple that began five years previously with two bus tickets and a pair of suitcases between us, we had quite a home. We had even found ourselves a dog back in Oklahoma – abandoned alongside the highway – and come February he’ll have been with me for fourteen years.

    Sadly, Sara’s demise transformed the happiness associated with being in Arkansas. It’ll always be her final home – one’s birth and one’s death are rather distinct locations – but the event caused us to shift our priorities. I was laid off from General Electric and chose a job as a fork lift driver to remain within two miles of our house. I made $9.35 per hour before taxes and was paying a lady $8.00 per hour after taxes to watch Sara during the nine hours that I was away from home. Needless to say, our bank account dwindled. Regardless, we had enjoyed the life that we so much wanted to live.

    I still have fond memories of events that were anything but enjoyable when they occurred, such as Sara and me “fighting” over a $.99 Kentucky Fried Chicken sandwich when my trucking business first began. We were stuck in San Antonio on a weekend and couldn’t receive funds from the trucking company. Nowadays, they pick up their ubiquitous cell phone and call up. Of course, I never paid more than $1.02 per gallon for diesel either. But I digress…

    My fondest memories with Sara were when we were “struggling” and had to improvise much of our “luxuries.” That period seems so long ago – and lost – that it feels like a distant faded nightmare. You know the type; where you’re struggling to remember the combination to your high school locker or perhaps have failed to turn in homework long since graded. I was infinitely happy with Sara – we didn’t have much but each other and that was more than all of the luxuries in the world.

    As I write these words, I am somewhat disgusted with the world surrounding me. Even the motorcycles that roar on past my window cost tens of thousands of dollars. At least ten times per day I see multi-million dollar jets arrive to bring in corporate executives and other notables for stays both long and short. I am not frustrated because these things exist – they’re a testament to everything that’s great about America. I am frustrated because I am sick and tired of hearing everyone complain about how bad things are today. Bad? Oh, really.

    I’m reminded of an incident that occurred in Maine when I was working aboard that fish processing vessel. Bath Iron Works – the General Dynamics builder of  Navy destroyers – had gone on strike.  Every restaurant, store, and bar that I passed by held signs supporting the workers. They thought that they would bring the company to its knees within a matter of days. They didn’t. Soon, the signs disappeared as local businesses suffered. Once, while walking back towards the ship I came near a man in a brand new Ford X with all of the chrome fixings. The pickup truck still had the paper license plate in the rear window. Behind this man’s vehicle was an equally new cabin cruiser – you know the kind, the ones whose trailer requires more wheels than I have opinions. This shipyard worker was talking to a friend about their once-beloved walk out and exclaimed how much trouble he was having just keeping his bills paid. I thought to myself “My God, this man’s monthly payment must be more than I make in an entire year!” Poor baby, he was going to lose everything because they wanted more from their employer. Greed, simply greed.

    Today, Americans face a $700 Billion noose over their heads and everyone screams of just how bad our economy is. Oh, really? Nearly everyone agrees that the housing crisis is to blame but therein the opinions divert. Yes, we’ve all heard about the foreclosures. Yet, how many realize that statistically the vast majority of home foreclosures were not from owner-occupied dwellings. No, most of the home foreclosures resulted from people purchasing additional homes that they intended to rent. When the floor collapsed, these people were not inclined to “do everything” to keep their mortgages paid. In addition, those who found themselves living within homes that they could not afford simply thought that they could keep borrowing on them until their rich uncle came from the poor house and helped them get out from underneath these towering debts. After all, real estate always increases in value, right? Yeah.

    Adjustable Rate Mortgages, housing gluts, and lack of financial planning all conspired to sabotage the best laid plans of the ignorant. We simply allowed ourselves to be duped into believing that the American Dream was indiscriminate. It isn’t – it requires self-sacrifice, financial stewardship, and discipline. Dreams never arise without some form of mental input upon our part. If I have a nightmare, it cannot – and should not – affect anyone else. Unfortunately, we now reside within a society where it is perfectly normal to saddle others with our problems. To drag them down along with us into the quicksand of improprieties instead of our searching around for a branch or club of grass in which to extract ourselves. This has to stop if for no other reason that the policy failed in both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

    I am not writing these words as a master of financial opportunity. I’ve been laid off before and I’ve made some piss poor business decisions of my own. Nobody is perfect and nobody will be. We just need to learn from our errors so that, at a minimum, the education received is far greater than the hazard endured. I don’t see that with America today. The rich uncle that we eagerly await from the poor house is Uncle Sam and we taxpayers already have our hands full.

Trackposted to Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Rosemary's Thoughts, Woman Honor Thyself, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Cao's Blog, Wingless, and Democrat=Socialist, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe

Comments

[Debbie]

Comment response from R. J. Godlewski:

For Williebill (Houses that Rubes Built)

Thank you very much! But I'm not gifted, just blessed. God grants me the temporary common sense to write what He wants me to and in his words. Left to my own devices, I'd offend half the planet and alienate the rest. ;o) I just try to write the same way in which I would speak with people.

-- R.J. Godlewski

[williebill]

Since I have been snooping here, I have read most everything you have posted here. I am amazed that you can vary your subjects and keep in mind what you have written to keep continuity and interest by your readers. You sir, are a gifted person, don't stop
WB

[Aurora]

Your story is probably one of so many Americans; at least the Americans of a generation or so ago when people could work hard and build their lives and pass something onto their kids who then would build something by working hard etc.
Somewhere along the line, something has changed. We now have more stuff than ever and live our lives on the back of a kind of unreal bubble that's bound to burst sooner or later.
Was it our own greed and blindness that got us here or were we sold out? Perhaps a mixture of both. Who knows. It looks as though we are going to have to start from the bottom and rebuild again. That's if we have that opportunity when all the 'solutions' have been put into place.