Caitlin Cassidy

The War at Home and Abroad

We are a tired poeple. Patience and peace on our part has seen so little done over time. My black brothers and I will no longer seek justice for our poeple in silence. Last night, Jimmy Boy, Logan, Ned, and I sat ‘round the supper table for awhile after we’d done finished eating, staring down at our plates and not sayin’ a thing. None of us had been able to finish our food ‘cause of the disturbin’ thought, the frustration we were sharin’ in quiet. Logan was the first to lift his eyes from the table. He said he was aimin’ to do somethin’ , to start up somethin’ like the freedom ride or some sort of protest march. While he spoke, spittin’ hate and determination left and right, I recalled the images I’d seen a few years back on the television at Jimmy Boy’s. The horrifyin’ images of men, women, and children in Birmingham bein’ blown away by the white men with hoses. As the scene flashed again and again behind my forehead I heard Logan’s voice ringing in my ears and felt myself noddin’ at each word he said.
Not two days later, Logan got a letter in the mail from the government. Logan and I had graduated from highschool together a few years back. Though Logan was one of the damned smartest kids I knew, he hadn’t gone to college on account of his parents couldn’t afford it. My family bein’ in a simila’ position, Logan and I settled for jobs at a local convience store, hopin’ to save us enough money to eventually pay our own way through college. Logan had done a much better job of holdin’ on to his money. At the end of two years at the shop, I’d not $20 to my name, havin’ gone and spent it on things I then considered more important than an education, things like Miss Suzanna White. I will never forget the day that Logan got the draft letter, callin’ him to fight in Vietnam. I was near cryin’ when Logan burst out laughin’, a frenzied, maniacal laugh. Wasn’t it funny he said, a deeply rooted hate and sorrow in his black eyes, that a country that hardly treated him like a citizen ‘spected him to give his life for it.

There's no Aunt Sarah

My stomach’s empty but it don't hurt and my back’s near broke but it don't ache.  Can’t feel nothin’ right now -not my tired feet that won’t stop bleedin’ or the on’rous weight of the dust in my lungs.  The physical sufferin’ ain’t nothin ‘pared to the hurt in my heart.
When you’ve gotta worry ‘bout starvin’ and freezin’ to death you forget to keep track of what day it is, but I’d estimate today’s the 15th of December, year 1932.  It took me near three weeks to get here.  “Here” is Lancaster, California.  I left home in Kansas when Dadi told me he’d got word from Aunt Sarah in California.  “Aunt Sarah’s got a place for you to stay with her and she’s found you a good job in a shop downtown Lancaster,“ he said.  “You go put your things in the bag that I’ve left you upstairs and I’ll take you to the train in the morning. ”  I had never met Aunt Sarah, let alone heard mention of her in our house before the day that Dadi told me I’d to go live with her.   Things were hard for us then.  Not just hard for my family but for all the farmin’ families in Kansas that depended on the crops.  Ever since the topsoil started blowin’ ‘way nothin’d wanted to grow.  No crops, just dust.  It meant no money, empty stomachs, cold bodies.   
At 14, I was the third oldest of Mama and Dadi’s kids.  My brothers Jake, 16,  and Tom, 15,  left a few months before I did to find work and s’port themselves on account of mama and dadi could hardly feed themselves.  Before Dadi’d told me I’d be leavin’ too I’d thought about gettin’ myself a job.  I felt awful guilty all the time ‘bout bein’ another mouth for Mama and Dadi to fill.  It was almost relievin’ that I’d be leavin’.  My absence’d be improvin’ for Mama and Dadi and my sisters.  I kissed Anne-Marie, Sue, and Emily goodbye and went to find mama to do the same but Dadi said, “Listen, Sarah, you don’t say nothin’ to your mother.  Good-bye will break her heart so you just let her be.”  It broke my heart not gettin’ to say bye to her but I thought Dadi was right so I let her be like he said to.  I put a pair of socks, a blouse, skirt and my doll, Jenny, into the canvas bag that Dadi’d left at the foot of my bed.  The next mornin’ Dadi walked me to the train station.  He gave me 20 cents, told me which train to take, and left.  I like to think Mama cried when she found out what Dadi’d done the next mornin. 
I made quick friends with a hobo ‘bout my age named Jim.  He warned me ‘bout the railroad bulls and told me where the hobo camps that made the best mulligan stew were on the way from Kansas to California.  I didn’t spend more than a day with Jim but he taught me things my life’d come to rely on later. 
I spent ‘near three weeks ridin’ the rails, walkin’ on route 66 to get from station to station and stoppin’ at hobo camps in between.  Pretty much ‘came a ‘bo myself.  Today I arrived in Lancaster, California.  The prospect a’ my arrival here’s what kept me goin’ all the time I was trav’lin’.  Imagine my disapointment ‘pon findin’ there really wasn’t no Aunt Sarah.  That there wasn’t no warm place to stay, no good job like Dadi’d promised.  I know now that I was a burden that Dadi made up his mind to get rid of.  If the poisnin’ mulligan stew I’ve been livin’ off the past three weeks don’t kill me, this feelin’ in my heart will.

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American Consumerism out of Hand

I cannot say more eloquently than Sinclaire Lewis, author of Babbit, how I feel about today’s average American citizen. They are, in Lewis’ words, “materialistic, amoral, superficial conformists.” (A People and A Nation. Vol. 2) Under the leadership of President Coolidge, many United States businesses have prospered. President Coolidge and his administration have successfully reduced federal debt and lowered income-tax rates. Working Americans’ wages have been raised and the standard cost of living remains relatively the same. As a result, the average American citizen makes more money today than at any other time in history. Many Americans were suddenly asking themselves, “What do we do with all of this money?” The wise answer to this question is far from the one that Americans seem to have found appropriate . Americans answered: “spend it!” It is not so much the spending that bothers me but that the spending is thoughtless and on unnecessary material things and entertainment.
Americans, not accustomed to having such money in their pockets, excitedly and ignorantly spend their ‘spare change’ on things like toasters and machine-made clothing. Many luxuries such as fine clothing are now considered by Americans to be necessities. Companies and society put pressure on women to keep up with the latest fashion trends no matter what the cost. Money spent on dresses, jewelry and other accessories that are worn only once as they prove to be mere passing fads, is money that could be saved for future necessary expenses like food! Americans have become a selfish people; there is no concern for future generations. Mothers spend more on their clothes in an effort to keep up with superficial trends than they do on their children’s education. Recent statistics show that more money is being spent on advertisements for clothing, cars and other goods and services than on all types of formal education for not only children, but adults as well.
The invention of the automobile and its rapidly declining price as a result of high demand and mass production, makes the automobile desirable and attainable by most Americans. Men and women seem to consider the automobile, much like chic clothing to be more of a necessity than a luxury. It is a luxury, I assure you, and a dangerous luxury at that, one that is certain to cause great problems in America’s future. Even now, one is able to see that with the large number of automobiles being manufactured and purchased every day that the demand for oil will continue to grow. With America’s growing dependence on cars for transportation, America’s oil resources will be quickly depleted and America will be forced to depend on other nations for oil. Currently, the US is producing roughly 65% of the world’s oil. We must ask ourselves how long we will be able to keep that up. As convenient as it would be there is not an endless supply of oil, folks. Cars also necessitate enormous government expenditure on highways and paved roads. So, while the initial cost of the car may seem low, the things that the automobile requires after purchase are extremely expensive.
Americans become more and more each day, a dependant people. American depend too greatly on machines, allowing them to do much of the work humans had to do previously and growing lazy as a result. Women, the majority of which are now using washing machines and other machines to do household work will soon forget how to perform the simplest of domestic tasks. Now that food comes in cans and plastic packaging very few women cook. They are all tucking away grandma’s wonderful recipes and at meal time, choose instead to pop open a can of preserved ham. It is truly disgusting. This generation is killing tradition!
America’s rising demand for goods and services puts pressure on companies to produce more. Rise in consumption is requiring companies to mass produce using machines and unskilled laborers. American pride and care in the manufacture of goods is a thing of the past. Machines and assembly lines that are now used in many manufacturing factories across the country destroy all sense of creativity and individuality.
We are poisoning our minds and bodies with excess. Americans abandon educational books, lectures, etc. for radio shows and other forms of entertainment that do nothing more than supply the American people with meaningless gossip. Baseball games, dance clubs and radio gossip-shows are doing nothing to better American society. In moderation they are fine, but we have long past moderation. Americans no longer seek self-edification, instead they spent their would-be productive time drinking, smoking, dancing, shopping.
It is true that the American economy is booming but how foolish are those Americans who equate prosperity with progress. How long will prosperity last? I implore you, for a moment to look past present time, to not be so blind as to disregard the future of this country. The American people will undoubtedly soon be faced with the cruel consequences of their selfishness or generations to come will be forced to suffer the consequences of our actions. How is it that so many men, women and children are blind to the consequences of their sick desire for and obtainment of material things?! Americans, I fear, have become a selfish, conformist, dependant people.

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