At the desk, 8:38 a.m.
Yesterday, after moving this zucchini plant from too crowded to the open bed and laying out a new garden bed (pictures to come), we went to the hardware store to get this and that. I went to the garden center to look for tomato cage solutions; the husband and Rose went inside to get some watering this and that's.
Standing in the middle of the garden center, the clerk said to me: "You know we're just about to go into another recession."
I turned and looked him in the eye. He nodded with certainty.
"Oh really?" I said. "Why would you say that?"
He had no answer. I gave him a strong look.
"We haven't even come out of the last one," was all he came up with.
I shrugged my eyebrows and we moved on.
This morning, I read an article about the Midwest Corn crop drying up in the fields. Due to near drought conditions, many corn fields are not going to produce corn this year. The farmers worry that it's like the drought of 1988, but they whisper about the Dust Bowl.
(Here's a history refresher for those who need one. The Great Depression consisted of the 3 Ds: The stock market crashed in 1929 - economic depression); severe drought; and the winds that made the severe drought just that much worse - dust bowl).)
And then I saw this article - Missing the Boat, the Case for Marriage. Jessica Bennett shares her fear of getting married, her mockery of it for six years - including a cover line Newsweek article - while assuring herself that she was happy with the boyfriend she refused to marry, and then when she wanted to marry him (finally), he dumped her.
And I thought ENOUGH!!
You know what gardening center clerk, no one - not Noble Prize winning economists, not the head of the International Monetary Fund, not even the head of the Federal Bank - I repeat: No one knows when a recession or depression is coming. Sure, if anyone had bothered to even read the Great Depression wikipedia page, they would have seen that the policies of the Bush administration and what was left over from Reagan and even some of Clinton's work, could lead to a depress. But that's a big could!
No one knows when or if an economic downturn is going to come. No one. So why are you so certain one is on the way??
And good Lord. Corn? Really?? Every thinking person said: "If you make fuel out of corn, what are you going to do when there's a drought?" Hell, they said that in the 1970s when they tried to create Ethanol for fuel. Lo and behold, there's a drought. Now what? We've already driven up corn prices with this scheme, plowed under virgin forests to grow the corn for fuel, and created food riots around the world. Maybe it's time to give up on this turd?
A few things have changed since the Dust Bowl and the drought of the 1930s. Farming practices for one. The second is all that irrigation. No one could have conceived of the kind of irrigation that's available now. Here in Colorado, the water tables are monitored and taken care of. They weren't in 1930 - they are now. I'm not saying that it's not tough for people or it's not going to happen, but why are we throwing way eighty years of farming research, amazing public works, and infrastructure?
As for Jessica Bennett, listen this is really not what you missed by not getting married: "But would it have worked? I’ll never know. What I have learned is this: While “happily ever after” may indeed be a farce, there’s something to be said for uttering “I do.”"
What you missed by not getting married was getting to know you: learning about who you are through the deep connection and commitment with another person, watching yourself age and grow through the reflection of someone else's eyes. What you missed what's whether it worked or what you'd get - you missed the chance to build a better you.
That's my point.
We have a chance - right now, right this minute - to create our own destinies and build our own history. We live in countries and cultures which even allow us to do just that.
I refuse to be shackled by my parents disaster of a marriage, like Jessica Bennett says she is.
I refuse to believe that the HUGE agri-business machine is going to grind to a halt due in some modern day Dust Bowl.
I refused to believe in any predictions of recession or depression.
Let's collectively shake it off this funk, utter a collective 'ENOUGH' and move on!
History, my history, your history, has yet to be written.
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