Carey On... The Land of the Risk-Free
Katie was a refugee at the age of 3. She lived in a British camp in Persia (now Iran) much of her young life. Her family came through Canada and found their way to Flint for the factory jobs. They had olive skin, dark hair, and an ethnic look. They didn’t speak English, but learned it word by word, by reading the newspaper. Three families lived in one house, and pooled their incomes.
In the 1930’s, Katie asked for work at Smith-Bridgman’s Department store. There was a depression. They asked her to prove she wasn’t Jewish. She pulled out a little gold cross on a chain. Was this discrimination? Seems so, but really they just needed to know she could work Saturdays.
And she did, for 43 years. She was 70 years old when Smith-Bridgman’s went bankrupt. She got no pension. She had diabetes, eye trouble, arthritis, blood pressure problems, and wore a back brace. The family would take care of her.
But Katie didn’t want to be taken care of. She sat home and twitched for 2 weeks. One morning, she disappeared.
That night she came home and said, “I got myself a job.”
Did you hear that? In Flint, during a recession, while 25-year-olds were insisting there were no jobs to be found, a 4-foot-9 70-year-old lady went out into the world and in a single day came home employed. She had no high school diploma, no adult education, no job-training program, no government hand-outs, no affirmative action, no special considerations, no AARP, no dipping into her neighbor’s wallet to pay her bills.
She never griped that the government wasn’t taking care of her. Instead, she said, “I will work harder than the next person, and you will be glad you employed me.” And she got that job.
She hauled out every morning, forced her limbs to move, gave herself an insulin shot, put on her back brace, took 14 pills, and went to work.
Her new job lasted 18 years. At 89, she finally retired, having saved nearly $40,000 on a minimum wage job.
That day my great-aunt Katie took up a new hobby---cleaning my house (all eleven rooms) and helping raise my kids. She did this until just last year, when at the age of 94 she finally needed help to live day by day. It took nearly a century, but she’s finally lived long enough to get back some of the money she has poured into the government.
Today Katie is in a nursing home in Flint, visited daily by the many people she has influenced during her industrious life. We even bring her to Owosso from time to time, because we can’t imagine life without the little powerhouse who taught us how to work. She is the ultimate in self-reliance.
During Katie’s working life, the age of the social hand-out was born in America. For nearly three-quarters of a century, money has been pillaged from Katie and handed to able adults who “made mistakes,” “had no training,” “couldn’t make it” or otherwise threw away the 12 years of free education provided to them.
The government took her money to “train” people who had more education and social advantage than Katie ever had. While they were “training,” Katie was working, saving, and paying their bills.
Don’t misunderstand . . . Katie got the better end of the deal. She prevailed because she never turned to the government for “help.” Many of those who took her money are debilitated to this day, as are their children, who have rarely seen an adult go to work every day. That “safety net” is really a noose.
I watched Katie and every man and woman in our family get up every day and work. I’m glad I saw this, instead of the other picture I might’ve seen if the government had been let in our door.
Appreciate 12 years of free education, stay in school, work diligently, save money, vote against government social programs, and don’t expect others to pick up after you. You’ll be better off.
America is the land of the free, not the land of the risk-free.