Portrait of a Struggling Town: Monroe City, MO

I am currently working as a waitress, while I Full Time RV, in the Mid West, in a town that President Obama visited not too long ago - eating at "Peggy Sue's" cafe (he ordered a cheese burger and took it to go), and sadly leaving the town as desolated as he found it.  This is NOT to imply that President Obama is responsible for this town's condition.  Rather, the town has stuffed many losses in a short time (between December of 2009-June 2010) including the closure of its biggest industries: Leggett and Platt the makers of car parts and other items (beds as well), Pace Industries (Die Casting), and The Intermet Corporation (Motor Vehicle Parts/Accessories).

When these three industries closed up and consolidated out of town, they left in their collective wake a mess, including high unemployment, and even higher utility prices for the rest of the residents of Monroe City and the surrounding area.  As Angie Griggs, a resident of Monroe City, put it while speaking to WGEM: "The worst thing will be people losing their houses, their cars, their way of life," which was exactly what happened. In June of this year, right about the time my husband and I arrived, Sheila Gosney, writing for The Lake Gazette, placed the unemployment rate for Monroe City at about 13.30 percent, compared to the national average of  8.50.

Of course, these figures do not not take into account the #99ers - that is, those who have been out of work for 99 weeks or longer, and now do not qualify for unemployment and are no longer counted or considered in unemployment statistics (what, do they disappear after the magic 99 mark?!).  The question I am left with is this: do towns like Monroe, City only garnish official presidential visits without also solutions?

I am only here for a short time, but my husband and I have gotten to know some of the people here and we care about them - as much as many may need government assistance, there needs to be job creation.  Yes the automotive industry took a hard hit, but if we as a nation focused on how we could create more concrete jobs where industry is created, rather than service positions only - places like Monroe City would have a better chance to survive. The key is job creation - this is a must.

__________ Articles cited for this post:

Gosney, Sheila.  (30 June, 2010).  "Struggling Economy Teaches a New Generation of Local Residents How to Save Money."  The Lake Gazette.  Accessed on 7/31/2010 at http://www.monroecity.net.

NA. (4 June, 2009).  "Pace Industries in Monroe City to Close July 14."  WGEM.  Accessed on 7/31/2010 at http://www.wgem.com/global/story.asp?s=10361767.

Websites and articles of interest:
99ers dot Net
The Lake Gazette

So, We're All Hobos!

I keep reading articles lately (especially from the Chronicle of Education, such as: "Many More Students Are Defaulting Than Official Tallies Show") on for-profit universities and community colleges, and how they are preying on low income people who will, it is argued, likely default on loans. Certain percentages are mentioned including: minorities, people living in shelters, first generation immigrants and so on. Now I have my own issues with for-profit institutions, although I work for one (mostly because I am more of a socialist), but what these articles forget to discuss is the fact that projected defaults will be majorly determined by lack of job creation! We are training people for jobs that DO NOT EXIST! We are funneling these folks into re-training and education while we all sit out the recession, but no real effort has been made at job creation.

Where are these students going to go once they have finished their education? What are they to do; re-train again? It was even suggested that I re-train because of the lack of full-time teaching positions and the active effort to do away with tenure.

The problem is job creation. With the government’s lack of understanding of the big picture (this is obvious when we consider that unemployment benefits will not be renewed and so even more Americans will lose their homes, livelihood and hope), we are heading into a deep spiral into Dante’s armpit more than ever before. Working the full-time RV life, I have seen firsthand how this will affect many who are already living out of cars and campers, working one odd job after another and camping where they can. Most people I have met are living in RVs because after years and years of working, they lost everything because of the market. At least by living in their RV, individuals can have a roof over their heads. But the work offered to those in this life style (those who do not have their own businesses) is substandard in regards to pay, overworking hours, working conditions (often but not always), lack of true benefits and the like: working full-time, and overtime, and pulling in only $800 a month per single worker – who can live and eat off that? We are retraining for what?

We need to figure something out as a global community, as well as a national one. What we have is not work and funneling people into education and retraining for markets that DO NOT EXIST is not the answer. As much as I am critical of for-profit universities – the problem of loan default is not simply their fault – look at the bigger picture folks – one that includes the lack of job creation, opportunity, and hope (wasn’t that the bloody idea? Hope?) R

Coloring Hair

It has been a while since I have colored my hair.  With everything going on, I did not have time; and I realized that I have a lot more gray hair than I thought I did (surprise).  It is not drastic, but of course all signs of aging are alarming in our culture.  That and a consumerist culture tends to pander to the young - those who are no yet fed up by the commercials and ads - and even tell the old that they must be young. 


When I was younger, I colored my hair as well. I remember a time when you kept quiet about coloring your hair, but that was more a part of my mother mother’s generation, not my own. I actually remember getting the “that was not appropriate” look from my mom once when I had announced, as a child, to room of people that mom looked pretty because she just got done coloring her hair! But in my generation, you were encourage to color your hair, and most of us were coloring it such outrageous colors – there was no sense in pretending that you were really born with the hot pink shade being sported on your new Mohawk – hell you might have green hair tomorrow! Ok, I did not do the Mohawk, but I did sport the short Annie Lennox/ Sinéad O’Connor spiky look. I have been a red head (a lot), brunette, bleached white, Pink, Purple, and a few colors in-between. I colored my hair for a statement. It is not that I had any illusions that by coloring my hair I would be different. You know the myths: Blonds have more fun. Red Heads are passionate and unpredictable. Brunettes are intelligent, reliable and thoughtful (good mothers?), and the purple/pink/green crowd are crazy insane folks. The blue haired folks were either old or part of the insane group (by proximity really). But there was a bit of an illusion that by coloring my hair, others would see me as fun, passionate, nuts, daring or intellectual. Why? I was trained well by the adverting agencies, just like the rest of us.

So, when I got older and started sporting grays, I did not want to stop coloring my hair at all. I worried: my god, I am old now, and people are not seeing me as who I really am – they are seeing only my wrinkles and my gray hair. Is this true? Sometimes yes, and other times no. But I can tell you that many of the young students I teach see me as old. That is human nature I guess. But I am told that every time I turn on the damn TV. I need surgery to get rid of my wrinkles (older is bad), or a new cream, or better make-up. And I truly need to color my gray hair before I lose my friends, job, and sexuality (that is likely gone anyway but a new hair color might just do the trick!). It used to be that only women were inflicted by this type of advertising but now men are being brought into the fold as well. Indeed, there are two commercials that tell men they are in trouble unless they color most of their hair (keep a bit of gray because of the gray + men = "distinguished." This can be compared to the gray + women = old "nonsexual bag" message).

But the distinguished message is even leaving men behind with the new Just for Men Hair commercial that suggests that a job, a son’s success and sex at night all can be achieved by using this one product.

A lot of men are outraged by the negative suggestions in these commercials, but I wish to remind them that women have been subjected to this kind of advertising for years! Regardless, these messages have sociological imports because this recession has harmed many workers who have lost their retirements and ageism is now even more of an issues that before. Women in their 40s and men in their 50s are finding it super hard to get full time employment. Ageism is an issue our society will be dealing with in a new way and commercials like these only work to substantiate misguided myths about age- as misguided as the "blonds are stupid but have more fun" myth. Just something to ponder. R