Miriam,
I remember Odetta, but I had to look her up to find that she died in
2008. She was such a legend that I was surprised to note that she was
only five years older than me.
V
Odetta, née Odetta Holmes, (born December 31, 1930, Birmingham,
Alabama, U.S.—died December 2, 2008, New York, New York), American
folk singer who was noted especially for her versions of spirituals
and who became for many the voice of the civil rights movement of the
early 1960s.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/4/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
I've been reading a book about Odetta. Your email reminds me of the book. In
case you don't know, she was a fantastic African American folk singer. She
had an operatic voice and you can find her on youtube. Look for her singing
The Battle Hymn of the Republic. I did yesterday, while I was reading about
it and it is just amazing! Anyway, one of the things that the book told me
that I don't remember, is that in the 50's, black and white people were not
permitted to physically touch each other on television. I mean, touch, like
putting your hand on someone's shoulder or shaking hands. It would alienate
the southern affiliated stations of the network. So, for example, Tennessee
Ernie Ford having a black person on his show and clasping her hand was
revolutionary.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, April 4, 2021 4:23 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: FW: [DB-Review] Nomadland: surviving America
in the twenty-first century DB86971
Miriam,
But my sisters and I never caught onto the fact that we were poor.
Sure, kids we went to school with did live in big fancy homes, and we knew
we were "different", but I never thought of it in terms of "rich kid, poor
kid".
Dad's pay took care of rent, food and basics. Mother went to business
college after we were old enough to take care of ourselves after school.
Mother then took jobs as a stenographer, saving toward a home. We bought
our home in 1949, in Ballard, a working class area in the northwest end of
Seattle. By 1950 we were looking more like lower middle class. The folks
bought a large TV, a real clothes dryer, a new electric stove, our first
refrigerator, and the house came with central heating. It was a 3 bed room,
one and a half bath, with a two room apartment that earned half the house
payment each month.
My sisters and I were quickly accepted by the neighborhood kids...until we
threw a Halloween party in 1953. My older sister invited Al Booth to our
party. Al was a Negro kid. He was quite popular due to his combo that
played in bars and clubs in Seattle.
But as fine as it was to "know" Al as a talented musician, it was quite
another thing to rub shoulders with Al at an All White party.
Our friends talked and sent my best friend Gordy, to tell us that next time
we invited Al to a party, please let them know in advance. The message was
that none of them would attend.
At least during the party the "offended" kids were polite to Al.
Ballard High had mostly kids from Scandinavian homes. We had one Black
student in Al Booth, one Chinese girl, and one Mexican girl.
Working Class families tended to group together. Ballard was named "Snoose
Junction", and the majority of Italians lived in "Garlic Gulch" in southeast
Seattle's Columbia City. Asians, mostly Chinese with some Japanese and
Filipinos lived in "China Town", later called the International District in
the old central area. Blacks were squeezed into the "Central District" East
of downtown Seattle. I can remember the first time I saw a Negro in
downtown Seattle, and I was schocked, as I boarded a bus at First and Pike,
to behold a Black Man driving the bus. I can also recall the very first
woman bus driver in Seattle. It was toward the end of WW II. Following the
War, she was relieved of her bus driver duties, and she stood at the bus
stop at Third and Pine, making change for passengers.
Red Lining was the Tool of Choice by realtors. And all police officers were
big and white.
It takes some effort to remember what I felt and what I thought back then.
How much my attitudes have changed since trhen...for the better, I
believe.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/4/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
And that tells me a great deal about the difference between what it
meant to be a white working class family living in New York City from
being a working class family living in Seattle, Washington. Of course,
I was an only child, most likely because I was born when my mother was
30 years old because my birth was delayed by the depression. And I was
an only child, probably because of her age and because I was born with
a significant visual disability. We lived in a one bedroom apartment,
a 25 minute subway ride from midtown Manhattan. We didn't worry about
having enough water or heat.
We could occasionally eat in restaurants, once in a while, in a very
fine restaurant in Manhattan, and attend Broadway shows. My father
purchased a car when I was ten. In the city, that was a luxury. We
didn't buy a TV until I was 12 or 13. Each week, my parents sat down
with my father's pay envelope and divided the cash among little metal
boxes labeled rent, phone, electric, and gas so that by the end of the
month they'd have enough money to pay the bills. But that sounds like
luxury compared to what you describe.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, April 4, 2021 1:29 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: FW: [DB-Review] Nomadland: surviving
America in the twenty-first century DB86971
Frank,
Back when I was young, in the 1940's, a laborer held a job and
supported his family. His wife ran the family and the home. He, the
bread winner, brought home the bacon. Of course we did not need the
glitzy trinkets we now call "leisure time fun", like 70 inch flat
screen TV's, wraparound sound systems, etc., etc.
Our family home had 1 telephone hanging on the wall in the
kitchen/dining area, 1 Philco table top radio(AM only), 1 hand held
egg beater, 1 waffle iron, 1 windup alarm clock(Westclock), My
wardrobe fit in a single drawer consisting of 3 pair of sox, 3 pair of
under shorts, 3 undershirts, 3 short sleev pull over shirts, 3 long
sleeve shirts, 2 pair of jeans, 1 pair of shoes, 1 all purpose
coat(too warm in the summer, too cold in the winter), and 1 stocking cap.
Bath night was Sunday evening. Mother measured 2 inches of water in
the bathtub and put all 3 of us in at the same time, until my older
sister began to enter puberty. Washday was all day Monday, with a
scrubbing board and boiling water with the white clothes in. On the
porch sat the old washing machine with the hand cranked wringer. Our
"dryer" was Mother Nature. On nice days we had a clothes line that
was on pullies and the wet clothes were reeled out over the hillside for
all the world to see.
On rainy days we hung the wash on lines under the shelter of the porch
roof.
Warmth came from a coal stove in the living room and a wood stove in
the kitchen. Our floor was covered by bright colored linoleum in the
living room and dark green and gray in the kitchen/dining area. We
lived there for
12 years(1937-1949). And while we lived just a four minute bus ride
from down town Seattle, we lived in the woods on a steep hillside with
only a path going past our door.
And we children were happy.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/4/21, Frank Ventura <frank.ventura@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl, the days of financial security for the masses are long gone.
Did they ever exist, who knows. As with most folks these days I work
60 hour work weeks in which I get paid for 37.5. The bosses call the
unpaid labor time "job security". The first one third of my pay gets
automatically deducted from my check to pay the collection agency for
my late mothers medical bills, which I will be paying for the rest of
my life. I have less than
$1000 in savings and even if I had more they would go after that as
well.
The rest of my pay goes to heating our home and paying for my medicine.
Neither myself nor my wife will ever be allowed to receive Social
Security or Medicare. I consider myself typical of what is going on
our nation. Sorry for my pessimistic Sunday morning view-point.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, April 2, 2021 11:53 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: FW: [DB-Review] Nomadland: surviving
America in the twenty-first century DB86971
Thanks. I'm adding this to my "long list of books I plan to read".
The plight of these aging nomads is worsening as the COVID Pandemic
flows and ebbs. While we have some Solar energy, we still rely on
propane to run our generator in order to have power 24/7. Over this
past year our energy cost has gone up approximately 50%. Food costs,
especially fresh vegies, have also increased. We had set aside money
for a 10 by 10 greenhouse, but now we'd need to hire the building
done. We invested most of our retirement savings in a piece of
property back in 2006, believing that Land would be more stable than
Wall Street. I recall my own words, "Real Estate never goes down!"
So our $108 investment might, and it's a very shaky "might", sell for
$90,000. But it dropped to a low of $68,000. The other day, out of
the blue, a realtor called asking if we planned to sell our property.
Of course it would depend on the offer, but he said he'd get with his
client and get back to us. So here we are again, poorer but no wiser.
Do we leave the money in property and continue paying taxes and fees,
or put it in some investment plan at .005% interest?
Sheesh!
Nonetheless, whatever we do, we can expect the vultures to circle
anytime they smell money.
There's a mobil park close to us, called the S K P park. It's full
of fithwheels, trailers of all sizes and campers. They have a
clubhouse and they can swim in the lake...except the water is toxic.
They winter at the S K P park, and with warmer weather in the Spring,
they head out across the country. They will be returning earlier and
earlier as gas prices rise.
As they line up to head out, I'm reminded of an old children's poem
which goes in part, "Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are
coming to town.
Some in rags, some in tags and some in silken gowns."
Carl Jarvis
On 4/1/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
There's a reason why there are no black people involved in this
movement.
It's that it involves stealth parking of vehicles, and they know
that they'd be noticed and the police would be called. There's a
tiny section toward the end of the book where the author talks about
the income inequality which has caused all these people to become
homeless, but she never mentions structural change of society as a
solution.
-----Original Message-----
From: DB-Review@xxxxxxxxx <DB-Review@xxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: Thursday, April 1, 2021 7:03 PM
To: DB Review List <DB-Review@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [DB-Review] Nomadland: surviving America in the
twenty-first century DB86971
Nomadland: surviving America in the twenty-first century DB86971
Bruder, Jessica; White, Karen. Reading time: 10 hours, 0 minutes.
Read by Karen White. A production of the National Library Service
for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.
Business and Economics
A look at the subculture of older Americans who, unable to afford
either mortgages or retirement, are traveling the country in RVs,
campers, and vans. Particularly examines the life of one woman as
she travels between seasonal jobs and reunions with her van-dwelling
friends. Some strong language. Commercial audiobook. 2017.
This is a book about a group of Americans that never appears in the
news or in fiction. These are some of the victims of our
financialized economic system, the new kind of Capitalism that we
have been experiencing since the mid 1970's. This is non fiction and
it does not tell us when the numbers of these people began to
increase. All of them who are described in this book are white and
most of them are over 55 years of age, although there are a few
younger people. Many of these people owned homes in the past and
some earned good incomes. A few earned rather high incomes. Now, all
of them are living in vehicles or small living spaces attached to
vehicles. Their only incomes come from social security benefits and
temporary work that they find in various parts of the country, as
they travel from place to place. All of the people who are
described, have a cheerful, optimistic attitude, and all of them see
the situation in which they find themselves as their individual
problem which they will solve with independence and ingenuity. As
you read this, take a step back and look at the situations in which
these people are living, objectively, Linda, the person on whom the
book focuses, especially, and think about what the next ten to
fifteen years will be like for this 66 year old woman.
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