Living in Missouri and working in sales, I am constantly confronted with the Conservative Christian crowd. I was raised Southern Baptist and my wife is Catholic, so I'm no stranger to both Christian values, and values that pass for Christian but clearly aren't.
As I face the fears and misunderstandings of the Republicans I meet everyday, I've found one simple arguement to open their minds, and here it is:
One one side you have "fix the problems, mend the wounds, work together, build a better tomorrow"; on the other side you have "Fight! Win! Fight! Win! Fight! Win!" Which side better represents the teachings of Christ? Which side has spent the majority of their campaign being negative towards the other side? Which side tells you they'll aleviate your fears in the same breath they give you something to be afraid of?
I'm thirty-four years old, I have a beautiful wife, three wonderful children and a retired mother-in-law in my home. We bought this house when I was still working for Frito-Lay. I had a record income that year, nearly 56k myself, while my wife was over 30k in her job. The next year, Frito-Lay cut my route in half and making ends meet became difficult. I was working around 60 hours weekly and the budget began to get tight but we managed.
Last January I was let go from Frito-Lay and after only five weeks of searching I found a new job with Schwan's Home Service. I was excited for the change; the product is good healthy food, and I'm able to have a positive impact on my customers, visiting them in their homes and brightening their days. The hours were long but the job was rewarding.
Then last year in the summer factories began to close, and nearly ten percent of my customer base lost their jobs. Many quickly lost their homes as well and six of the twelve houses on my street went up for sale. Today three are still on the market. My income has dropped preciptously and I find myself working nearly eighty hours each week just to bring home $350 if I'm lucky.
My health is suffering. My doctors have narrowed my problem down to either basilary migraines or a brain tumor. Assuming it's the migraines, I'm faced with either being too sick to work or sleeping more, reducing my stress and improving my diet. Since I don't make enough money in the fourteen hours each day I'm at work already, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Morbidly I've realized that the seven dollars we spend each week on Life Insurance would pay off the house and the van, as well as a funeral if I were to have a stroke and die (a very real possibility with basilary migraines); However, the sixty dollars a week we spend on medical insurance would only cover a fraction of the expenses we'd incure if I became disabled by my condition.
We're three months behind on our mortgage. We have a fixed rate but the payments were based on an income I've never been able to get back to since we found our home. Because it's Halloween there are no operators at the mortgage center tonight to take the payment my wife called to make. Monday is next month and they'll expect two payments to prevent foreclosure. The truth is we would be overdrawn to make the payment today.
I know I'm not alone. I know I'm still better off than many of my fellow Americans. It's difficult not to acknowledge in this money-centric world that I am economcally better off dead than alive right now. I don't want to die, but I want my kids to keep their home. You see, my oldest is now seven, and I've been remembering the year I was seven as I struggle with these problems. That year my parents were separated, I was struck by lightning, my sister and I were molested, we lost one home to fire as the Savings and Loan forclosed, and then the hovel we'd moved into burned down five days before Christmas that same year. I literally woke up lying in a foot of snow with my mother standing in the door yelling "Get out and don't come back!" Every December 21st around nine at night I relive that event in vivid detail. I don't want my children to have any such trauma in their lives.
So I keep working fourteen plus hours each day. In sales, you have to have a positive attitude to succeed, so I put on the happy face, make light of the problems I face. I come home after eleven at night every night to a sleeping house, and try to unwind before getting a few hours of sleep and getting up to do it all over again. Lately I see alot of fear in my customers. Missouri has been a Red state for a long time. When I find another Obama supporter I spend some extra time with them, feeding on that energy and optimism. It gets me through.
Barrack Obama is a better future. I'll probably lose my home before he can do anything about it, but I know he can help others avoid my situation and I'll do my part to make sure he gets the chance. Nobody should suffer so a minority of Americans who have no concern for their fellow man can control the vast majority of the worlds wealth.
Vote for Barrack Obama and see the world become a better place!
