DEFEAT FASCISM

 A single mother in my town whose husband left her with two kids and won't pay child support because "Bambi" is high rent pays the same sales tax on a quart of milk as the trust fund baby who became a multi-millionaire when he exited his mother's womb. That's why scholars call it a regressive tax.

At the same time, it has always been one of the easier taxes to impose as its collection is done in small increments and may go relatively unnoticed unlike income tax which is proclaimed clearly and loudly each April.

It's been a popular tax to pass traditionally, the sales tax has. In my state, the highway department has even chosen to fund its work with the sales tax in lieu of charging the folks directly who use the highways. That way, the single mother mentioned above, who walks to her job cleaning houses, pays for the out-of-state truckers to use our roads.

It has always been a more popular tax than one actually based on income, say one with which the trust fund baby mentioned above pays tax on wealth. Incidentally, a powerful cabal that includes a high percentage of those trust fund babies mentioned above has recently ordered national legislators to reduce the income tax on high-wealth individuals and families. They much prefer the sales tax so a billionaire who inherited vast wealth won't have to pay more than you or I for our next Tesla. They enjoy what you and I might call "The Lucky Sperm" privilege that removes the income tax and relies on the sales tax.

Yep, it's been popular.

Until now.

Folks are beginning to notice. On-line retailers are even noting it on their sales. So legislators are squirming and looking for ways to reduce the impact. Our state, our counties, and our cities all depend upon the sales tax revenue for operation. It is now becoming a target.

One wonders which entity is in the most danger.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 32 (Cont._3)

Seeing as how I enjoyed no place in the planning of the Wedding of the Century, I concentrated on work. That came with a nice surprise. Tom called me into his office one day and asked, if he wasn’t getting too personal, what plans we had made for a honeymoon.

I said that plans were now resting between a jaunt to the Gulf Coast and a trip to Chicago to see relatives and the largest collection of important American architecture that existed in any single place in the country.

He nodded with approval. “Don’t let me interrupt plans that you might be looking forward to,” he said, “but how would you like and all-expense paid honeymoon in Denver, Colorado and then up to Aspen?”

“Aspen?”

“Not much skiing there in August,” he said, “but they’re beginning to attract a year-round tourist trade. It’s a charming place any time of year.”

“Aspen? Why Aspen?”

“We’re being hired to do a feasibility study for some folks who want to develop a learning and convention center in Arkansas,” he said. “They want to use the Aspen Institute as a model. It attracts an international clientele.”

I nodded. He continued. “We’ll pay for you to take your bride there and enjoy yourself for a few days if you’ll simply tour the facility, find out as much as you can about it, and bring back a report. You can spend the rest of the time as you please.”

“I’ve been to Denver once,” I said. “It’s an interesting place, the Mile-High City.”

“Spend some time there too,” he said. “What do you think?”

“I think I’ll check with Brenda,” I said. “But it sounds nice.”

I caught her in good mood while she was sewing her mother’s dress for the wedding. She expressed some caution. “What do I do while you tour the facility?” she said.

“Whatever,” I said. “Sleep, go site-seeing, shop, read. I can’t imagine that it would take more than a couple of hours.”

“Could we rent a car?”

“Already checked on it. Yes. We’ll drive farther up into the mountains and enjoy the vistas.”

Her eyes took on a misty look. “Did I ever tell you about the couple I knew growing up? Childhood sweethearts and all. Poor as church mice. Both raised up in sharecropper families. He was just a few notches up from functionally retarded, but got a job at the rice dryer when he got out of high school. Two of the sweetest people I ever knew. We were all so happy when we heard they were getting married.”

“I don’t remember your telling me about them.”

“They had their engagement picture in the local weekly. He wore his cowboy hat and she wore the cutest, most adoring smile you’ve ever seen. Some friends had chipped in and had her hair styled.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

“The paper included a little write-up about their plans. Guess where they were going for their honeymoon?”

“I have no idea.”

“To the Ritz Motel in Prothro Junction, less than 20 miles away, said so right there in the paper. It nearly made all of us cry.”

It nearly did me too.

“So,” she said. “I guess Aspen, Colorado isn’t that bad for a honeymoon, even if it is a business trip.”

“Whatever happened to your friends?”

“Still married and happy as can be. They have two sweet young kids and they are one of the most beloved families in the county. I'm inviting them to the wedding.”

“So, Aspen it is?”

“Why not?”

With no further discussion, She agreed to let the company fund our honeymoon and for it to be a “business trip,” as she put it. She said no more about it at the time.

I suspected that she did, though, file it away, should she ever find a use for it.

I dunno. Seemed like
a good idea to me.

Don't Get Me Started: December 1, 2017

Sometimes I want to teach how to run a small business. How does this relate to the fact that my trophy wife spent yesterday on top of a pump house? All day. With me steppin’ and fetchin’ tools and cutting up roofing shingles?

It’s like this. Out where our farm is located, you can’t hire anyone to do small jobs. I’m not even sure you can hire anyone to do big ones that easily. Oh, let me revise my premise. You might find someone if you are willing to ignore multiple stays in prison, severe meth addiction, and the stickiest fingers this side of Las Vegas, in the hiring.

We’re a little choosy.

Oh, we asked around and were referred to a man who “just loved” to do small jobs. He actually made it out to the farm to look at the job on the second try at an appointed time. He said he would check some material prices and get back with us. That was nearly three months ago.

So, we finally “backed our ears,” as Sainted Mother would say, and did it ourselves, my wife and I. We succeeded, she serving as “La Jefa” and me as “Jimmie Gofetch.” It’s done now and we can move on. To hell with the local contractor.

Honestly, I don’t know how people expect a business to succeed like that. I could have understood it if the man had said, “that’s not really my can of beer.” Disappearing, though, strikes him off the list for any future work or referrals. Consider too, that between my wife and her family, they know practically everyone in the county. It doesn’t take long for failure to overtake a person. Ask the former politician who lost an election by a dozen or so votes after she was rude to the Lady Hazel, my mother-in-law.

I think about small business success sometimes when I’m travelling the back roads of the state and come across an abandoned diner or retail shop on a road that maybe handles 100 vehicles on a good day in an area with a population of one person per square mile.

What has gotten into people? Has the act of contemplating reality disappeared from our national psyche? Never mind. Don’t answer that.

On the other hand, someone very close to me asked me once about going into business for himself. He was highly skilled, honest, dependable, hard-working, and well-liked, so we could avoid the initial threshold requirements. Also, the market was there. My advice?

- First: retain an accountant and pay attention

- Next: Pay your taxes,

- Pay your subcontractors,

- Pay your employees,

- Pay you creditors,

- Pay yourself last, and

- Do what you agreed to do, maybe a bit more.

It’s fairly simple. Long story short: He’s working on his second or third million now. I’m not sure which. He still lives in the same house he and his wife bought when they first married, when he was working on salary. Sometimes in my envy, I wonder if my advice was too good, or whether he just had a knack for it. I do know that he’s done two jobs for me at a bit more than two-thirds the figure the competition quoted and his crews arrived a bit early (from an hour and a half away) and finished before the estimated time.

I have people stop and ask me if we are related. Guess.

Too bad he doesn’t fix roofs. Maybe we wouldn’t have had to spend all day yesterday fixing one, and at our age at that.

Sure

Morning Thoughts: November 24, 2017

There was this man in our extended neighborhood back home. I can’t remember his name. Folks mainly called him “Good Boy.”

They called him that because he would start every greeting with, “I’m a good boy, ain’t I?” He was of indeterminate age, maybe somewhere just short of his sixties. He wandered the county in the company of two or more dogs who had an uncanny ability to determine whether one was greeting, teasing, or threatening harm to their master. They enjoyed the first, tolerated the second, and you didn’t want to fall into the third.

It’s scarcely an exaggeration to say you could smell him coming before you actually saw him, and you might see him anywhere, at anytime of day or night. You could buy a smile and harmless chatter, along with a day’s tolerance from his dogs, with no more than a cigarette and a friendly ear.

I don’t know his full history. According to my mother, he was from one of those pioneer families of the county whom a stranger would have classified as lower-middle class but whom locals knew as possessors of significant wealth. In the land where I grew up, the highest and most honored classifier of “class” was to be secretly wealthy while giving all appearances of a modest existence. A family who, particularly if it had inherited wealth, displayed opulence of any sort were so far beneath contempt as to be socially invisible.

So, it probably was true that "Good Boy" had been eligible for an education and a comfortable life, but something went wrong. My mother explained it in the common language of the day. “When he grew up, they just couldn’t do anything with him.” That was the local euphemism for “he went crazy.”

I subscribe to theory of his being educated for one reason. The man was some sort of musical savant. I know. I’ve heard him, from having worked at the swimming pool of a local country club for four summers while attending college. It wasn’t uncommon for the subject of this post and his dogs to wander onto the club grounds to watch the excitement and chat with old acquaintances.

Sometimes, when the club guardians failed to notice him, he would ease into an empty ball room, sit with his dogs beside him, and launch the club’s grand piano into sounds of breathtaking beauty. The most educated and knowledgeable person associated with the club was a head waiter who had previously taught English at our city’s African-American high school. He would identify the day’s music as Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, or the likes from the brief snatches played ere the authorities chased the performer and his dogs away.

I’ve heard that churches in the county, particularly those with powerful church-organs, locked their doors at night to keep "Good Boy" from terrifying nearby residents with midnight serenades. I can’t swear to that, but it’s too good a story to omit.

Don’t know what ever became of him. I fled Arkansas and Orval Faubus while the man, his dogs, and his music were still wandering the county. I thought of him this morning after I located a particularly exquisite rendition of a Chopin nocturne. I do an exercise I call “The YouTube Thread Predictor.” I simply count the thread of comments related to a particularly sublime piece of music and count the entries before one appears that involves either the “F-word” or an ad hominem attack on the previous commenter. It stands at about five on some pieces now, down from about ten at the end of last year. As with the so-called “Doomsday Clock,” a further rise may signal the end of civilization as we know it.

In the meantime, I’ll try to remember that one should never presume to predict from where pure beauty—or a pure lack of class—may emerge.