No man is an island!

Believe it or not, there was a time when I could have recited most of that poem and told you who wrote it, but those days are gone.  My foggy little mind no longer spits out long thoughts including poems, and other litany.  It mostly just gives me snippets of information that may or may not be actual, but I will accept that and be grateful that the damn thing still works at all!  That having been said, I shall forge ahead with some worthless piece of something for me to write and you to read.  Hopefully one of us will get something from it!

I woke up yesterday and my Grandfather Haas was on my mind.  118 years ago he came to the shores of this great country through Ellis Island.  The Haas family came in shifts.  Great Grandpa Haas had been married twice and the oldest children were responsible for the younger children.  My heart swells with pride when I think how the whole family left Dettingen, Germany and came to this country with everything they owned in the equivalent of a back pack.

The Beck family in Nickerson, Kansas was already established so that became the headquarters of the clan.  Abbyville, Plevna,  and the Huntsville area became Haas territory.  From there they spread out to Oklahoma and beyond.  Some where along the line Gagnebeins got in the mix.  Helen Gagnebein was my great grandmother and my great grandfather was somebody and if I could find my geneology book I could tell you his name, but I can't.  I do know Helen Gagnebein was married to him and had 3 kids.  Mable, Josie, and Lewis.  Mable and Josie married brothers so those are my double cousins.  Lewis married someone and I never knew them very well.  Then Great Grandma married a guy named Hatfield and he had a son named Stephen.  I did not know them well.  Great Grandma lived on one  corner in Plevna and Grandma of the other.  Great Grandma was going to get married a third time since she had been widowed twice by this time and the intended groom died before that could happen.  She then said to hell with it all, closed up her house and moved in with grandma.  And that is when I came on the scene.

Grandma Haas was crippled by a stroke and needed care.  I was 15 years old so I went to stay with them.  I have no idea how much help I actually was, but there I was.  I could help lift and wash dishes and water the plants.  That was pretty much all I was good for, but they seemed to be easy to please.  I mentioned before in another post that the only reading material was the family  Bible, so I got pretty familiar with the King James Version!  Now that is one thing that has stuck with me my whole life.  I can spout scripture till the cows come home, but I can not tell you where it is in the Bible, just that it is there.  I always envied people with memories that worked that way.  But back to the subject at hand.

A couple days ago I was on the phone with a friend and I have got to say, maybe the word I am looking for is not really "friend".  Now anyone who knows me, knows I am a bleeding heart Liberal.  I align with the Democratic party, because their thoughts seem to fall in line with my way of thinking.  In my mind the Republican party represents money.  Democrat represents rights.  That is just how it is.  So anyway, the subject of the kids and the border came up.  His immediate response was to ship the whole bunch of them back to where ever they came from because we have enough people on the dole here and do not need any more.  My idea is to wrap my arms around them and make them welcome.  Course I came from immigrant roots, and he does not?  Is he an Indian or Indigenous as we now refer to them?  Nope.  Anyone else walking these lands of the United States of America has immigrant roots.  My friend and I did decide that we would not discuss politics.  Lot of that going on in this country today.

I do know that different crops are being planted out here on the Mesa.  One thing I am very sure of is that the city boys and girls are not going to come out here and pick peppers so more crops are planted that can be harvested by one man and a machine.  Immigrant labor has been a way of life in this and any agricultural area forever.  They blend into the landscape and into the night.  When the crops are in and the fields barren, they return to Mexico.  They work and put money into our economy and send money home to Mexico to feed their family there.  Is that wrong?  Do they not bleed the same red blood that I bleed?  Do they not love their children as we love ours?

This is a bad way to start the day.  I would much rather face the sun and thank my Lord for getting me through the night then to go out on the street and wave a sign and try to convince a non caring public that children belong with their parents rather than warehoused some where sleeping under a mylar blanket to keep warm.  I wish I could wrap my arms around all the little babies that the man we must call leader has doomed to separation.  Our country is as divided as those children and their parents.



God help us all.

Spring time on the Mesa or better known as catch the damn wet backs.

Spring time on the Mesa is like no other time nor place.  Fields are being plowed, disked and some are already showing little onions and radishes popping through.  The field up on 27th Lane held black cows the last few months of the year and through January.  And of course there were little calves.  So damn cute hopping around.  How one cow could tell her calf from another always amazed me.

There were lots of cows and lots of calves.  This picture was taken on March 17.  The next day all the cows and calves were gone.  It made me very sad because having been exposed to life's realities I knew where they had gone.  They were taken to a sale barn.  Mothers went one way and the calves were sent to another pen. They were sold separately.  I can hear the calves crying and the mothers bellowing at night and that breaks my heart.  The field is now green with new alfalfa.  It is called the cycle of life.  Where do you think your hamburger comes from?

For time immortal Migrant workers have been a piece of the fabric that makes the Mesa one of the most lucrative garden spots in this United States.  Some of our greatest novels are based on the backs of migrant workers and the poorest of the poor who work the fields.  Who has not read "Grapes of Wrath?"  "God's Little Acre?"  "Angela's Ashes?"  The very fabric of this nation has been dependent on the poor.

Have you ever really just mingled with people who are struggling to put the next meal on the table, assuming they have a table?  You turn on the lights in your house and go into your kitchen to fix a meal.  Or order in a pizza.  At night you lay on your bed between your sheets and dream of tomorrow and going off to your job, or club, or wherever it is you go and do whatever it is you do. 

They come up here from Mexico.  You know where Mexico is and you know that our government wants to build a wall and keep them out of "our country".  Think about that a minute.  Are you going to show up out here in a few weeks to start pulling radishes and green onions and bundling them into little bunches to send to market?  Probably not.  Are you going to the produce stand to buy them nice and fresh for your table?  Sure.

When you are slicing those onions or eating that radish I want you to think about how that got to your table!  When you are roasting your chile, or eating your sweet corn fresh from the field, think about whose hands put it there.  Someone was bent over in the hot sun with their hands in the dirt picking it for you.  The "field workers"  are provided a "port-a-potty on the back of a trailer for their bathroom needs.  There is a cooler of water that may or may not have had ice in it when it left the farm.

The fields are alive with the workers all day long.  If it has rained and cooled the earth a little bit they are working in mud.  Most usually the sun is beating down all day long.  There is no shade.  They  work with hats and scarves covering every part of their body to keep the sun rays off them. 

Lunch break comes and they eat their beans and tortillas.  Of course they are cold, but they are also filling and easy to carry to the field. They drink water.  Lots of water.

When their 12 or 14 hour day is over they return to wherever they slept the night before.  Maybe a shack or shed some where.  Maybe a relative provides them shelter.  I do not know.  I do know they live in the shadows and they exist in a life that would break me in a New York minute.  Some of them have "papers" and some do not. 

They come here to work and when the season is over they go back to Mexico.  They go back because they live there.  That is their home.  They send money back to Mexico to take care of their family there.  That seems to upset some people.  I admire them for that.  While they were here they put money into our economy and what they saved they sent home.  They are taking care of their obligations.  Does that make them bad?  No!  How many people are we supporting because our "citizens" do not feel any need to work and take care of their own.

Many years ago my daughter and a son-in-law went to the fields to work.  Easy money. Pick a few peas and money in the pocket.  Yep.  They took my car and were gone 10 hours.  Patty had a red eye because she was behind Tex and he pulled a weed and threw it over his shoulder into her eye.  Their total take for the day was $6.30.  That was second only to the time that all 3 girls went out to top onions and I spent $30.00 buying the equipment needed.  That was a worse fiasco then the first trip. 

So, it is now Spring planting on the Mesa.  The "wet backs" are not showing up like before.  There are a few, but there is also a big white van that patrols the fields.  Not just the fields, but the sidewalks, and any where people with no hope congregate.  The men/women in these vans have the title of ICE on their uniforms.  That stands for Immigrant Code Enforcement (I think that is right.)  There job is to catch people "with out papers" and send them back to Mexico.  ICE is a good acronym for them because they are cold and ruthless.

(Interesting note here:  Back on Ellis Island when it was a clearing house for Immigrants and someone came through that did not have papers, the guard would call out "WOP!"  For many years Italians were called "WOPS".  I think it was later deemed a derogatory name and is no longer in use.  Just a thought there.) 

So here we set in a country that was founded on the poor and marginalized, meting out "justice" on the weakest of the weak.  I do not need papers because when I walk down the street I am white and everyone knows it.  I own my home.  I am privileged.  I have a car and draw Social Security.  I have it made.  Or do I? 

Our government bombed Syria because Syria gassed the same people who wanted to come to our country to escape.  No!  They are refugees and we will not have them here.  Isn't that just a little asinine?

I see the hatred in my country and it breaks my heart.  No more protection GLBT.  Confederate Flags flying in the breeze.  DAP full bore and hell with the Indians and their treaty.  EPA is a waste of money.  Global warming is a myth.  The homeless and the migrant workers are in danger and I can not help.  I want to gather the world  to my breast and tell them it will be alright.  But it won't.  The hatred is palpable.  I had a shirt once that said;

"They came for the Jews, but I was not Jew, so I stayed silent."

"They came for the Blacks, but I was not Black, so I stayed silent."

"They came for the Gays, but I was straight , so I stayed silent."

"They came for the disabled, but I was not disabled, so I stayed silent."

"Then they came for me, and there was no one left to SPEAK OUT!"

I will go to church this morning and I will pray for peace.  I will pray for my people who are suffering and I will pray for my friends who hide in the shadows and I will pray for my friends who ignore what is going on in our country. 

And then I will come home and weep.