Early morning, before my construction\njob. Drip coffee. Mugs. Creamer. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man is singing a Jerry Jeff Walker\nsong with a line about waves. Another man is heading out, his tan lab\nwaiting for him outside. He greets his dog and they walk out into the\ndrizzle. They are on the move, living out of cars, rigs or in the\nwillows or woods. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Grapes of Wrath<\/em>, which I am\nreading again for the first time in 30 years (or is 35?) was written\nfor them. We are there again, albeit in a different way, and with a\nmuch lower employment rate. I am diving deep into Wrath and I see the\nstriking similarities from the Depression era to the New American\ndiaspora underway today. No one drives jalopies today…wait they\ndo…they’re called old RVS…and the members of the contemporary\ndiaspora jalopy around in them, (or on foot or bicycle) and they\naren’t looking for work like the Joads and tens of thousands of other\nwere back then; they are looking to check out in protest or\nindifference or delusion or depression or depravity or defeat. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n I see members of this diaspora every\nday. I often talk to them. I pet their dogs. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n American politicians are oblivious to\nthese people. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are on the move but going nowhere\nexcept down the opposite path of what they are expected to do as\nAmericans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want to know more about these people.\nI want to hear their stories. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Early morning, before my construction job. Drip coffee. Mugs. Creamer. A man is singing a Jerry Jeff Walker song with a line about waves. Another man is heading out, his tan lab waiting for him outside. He greets his dog and they walk out into the drizzle. They are on the move, living out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[652],"class_list":["post-5122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","tag-coffee-shop-writing","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5125,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions\/5125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}