The Barber's Story
Oct. 31st, 2010 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
Pristine North, heh. Yeah, I hear you. People call this God's Country, think it's untouched by the Hand of Man. They have no idea.
I'm Third Generation up here, you know. We go way back. I know about the old days.
My grandfather worked at the tannery on the shores of Lake Bigbucks. It's all million-dollar condos now. Back then it was a tannery.
These tea party guys, against environmental regulations, safety regs, unions, they have no idea what went on in the old days. That tannery ran, and the salts and acids and scraps of rotting hide, hair, rancid fat, blood, all went right into the lake. No safety gear, no guards on any of the machinery. If you fell in a vat, burned yourself working the boiler, got poisoned by the chemicals or just got old so you couldn't work any more, get out. We don't need no broken down bums like you, and never mind you worked here twenty years. Go starve somewhere else, this is private property.
And no union, either, so the boss could do anything he wanted. Those guys worked their asses off, and half the time they didn't even get paid.
You see, if you had a good month and made a record amount of leather, that became your new quota. If you didn't meet your quota for that month the boss wouldn't pay you.
I said my grandfather worked in that tannery. My dad and my uncles did too, as children. They didn't get paid, you understand. They were just there to help my grandfather make that impossible quota, so HE would get paid.
The rich will be with you always, and they live in million dollar condos now, where that tannery used to be.
Sooner or later a big storm comes along; they always do. When it does, it churns up all that corruption that got poured into Lake Bigbucks a hundred years ago, and it turns the lake as red as blood. The rich people look out the windows of their million dollar homes at the storm and see a raging lake of blood, and they have no idea why.
I'm Third Generation up here, you know. We go way back. I know about the old days.
My grandfather worked at the tannery on the shores of Lake Bigbucks. It's all million-dollar condos now. Back then it was a tannery.
These tea party guys, against environmental regulations, safety regs, unions, they have no idea what went on in the old days. That tannery ran, and the salts and acids and scraps of rotting hide, hair, rancid fat, blood, all went right into the lake. No safety gear, no guards on any of the machinery. If you fell in a vat, burned yourself working the boiler, got poisoned by the chemicals or just got old so you couldn't work any more, get out. We don't need no broken down bums like you, and never mind you worked here twenty years. Go starve somewhere else, this is private property.
And no union, either, so the boss could do anything he wanted. Those guys worked their asses off, and half the time they didn't even get paid.
You see, if you had a good month and made a record amount of leather, that became your new quota. If you didn't meet your quota for that month the boss wouldn't pay you.
I said my grandfather worked in that tannery. My dad and my uncles did too, as children. They didn't get paid, you understand. They were just there to help my grandfather make that impossible quota, so HE would get paid.
The rich will be with you always, and they live in million dollar condos now, where that tannery used to be.
Sooner or later a big storm comes along; they always do. When it does, it churns up all that corruption that got poured into Lake Bigbucks a hundred years ago, and it turns the lake as red as blood. The rich people look out the windows of their million dollar homes at the storm and see a raging lake of blood, and they have no idea why.
