June 2009 Archives
Millen, Georgia feels like a community on life support. Shuttered storefronts line Cotton Avenue. Signs of commerce appear elusive. Even the dust blows around in swirls as if it has nowhere to go. "Way things are going, I believe it'll be a ghost town before long," Billie Nunnelee tells me from her perch behind the ice cream counter at K & K Antiques and Old Fashioned Soda Shop.
Read More
Columbia, SC: The news vans lined up outside the South Carolina State House on Thursday, along with a bright pink Chevy Suburban advertising The Cheat Book, which advertises itself as "The Ultimate Guide on How to Cheat on Your Woman." I doubt it has a sections on how not to formulate a patently dumb cover story or use a publicly-funded trip to visit your mistress if you're the chief executive of a state, but maybe that will come in the 2nd edition.
The Flopeye Cafe in Great Falls, South Carolina has at least a dozen forms of fried on its menu. I order two: breaded squash with tater tots. The server chuckles as I bemoan my lack of restraint. Laughter comes easy for Rebecca Polston, as do the tears after she sits down to talk to me.
"I'm someone who's always wanting more--whether it be knowledge, or financial, or happiness. I guess I live up to my name," Andy Moore explains over a couple of cold beers at The Owl's Nest in Forest City, North Carolina. "I've always taken bad things and tried to make them into something good." So when he lost his job at the local community college in May: "I refused to let it get me down." Like the mythical phoenix he has tattooed across his back, Andy Moore is determined to rise again--this time as DJ Eclectic.
On a slightly-more-than-one-lane road, off a winding country drive, off TN-63 deep in the forested beauty of the eastern Cumberland Plateau, a new homeless shelter opened its doors five months ago. Partially shielded from the road by a dense thicket of trees, the former abandoned building now housing the Scott County Homeless Shelter would look still abandoned if it weren't for the cars parked outside. Read More
Deb Shelton can almost track the ebb and flow of the recession's impact on Franklin, KY by the shifting content of classified advertisements she manages for her local newspaper. Sitting at her desk in the editorial offices of The Franklin Favorite, she flips through paper-clipped stacks of notecards she has kept for the past few years, each one documenting how many ads and of what type she had in a given week.
06/17/09 5:16 PM
Tweets From The Road
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is making news today with his lengthy criticism of some projects funded by stimulus money. I can't remember a single time I shared a millimeter of common ground with the conservative Oklahoma Senator, but I have to admit similar thoughts occurred to me when I drove past this massive sign advertising the source of funding for road work on I-64 near Hurricane, West Virginia. Picture after the jump.
West Virginia has endured pervasive poverty throughout its history. With a median per capita income at around $35,000, the state ranks second--after Mississippi--as the poorest in the nation. The people of West Virginia feature as stock characters in jokes referencing poor, uneducated "hillbillies." But within the state, the ruggedly self-sufficient culture that endemic poverty has engendered represents strength and independence--a thing of pride for residents. Most importantly--for the purposes of this project--that natural state of being for West Virginia has acted as a kind of buffer against some of the heartbreak and despair the recession has visited upon wealthier parts of the country.Read More
"If it ain't shootin' at me, I ain't stressed," Alan Eldridge tells me
with a sly smile when I ask how the recession has been weighing on
him. For a man who introduced himself with a business card advertising
ownership of the local "Dry Run Outfitters & Chicken Lips Rendering
Facility," the positive attitude does not surprise me. Read More
06/12/09 11:11 AM
Where's Christina?
The cataclysmic hemorrhaging of the US economy broke the spirit and bank accounts of Americans across the country. Job loss, bankruptcy, and home foreclosures mark only the measurable statistics representing crushed aspirations, helplessness, grief, desolation and broken-hearts of lives swallowed whole by a voracious monster experts like to call a recession.
"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places," Ernest Hemingway wrote in Farewell to Arms. This morning I begin a quest to discover that well of strength I believe still resides in the American people and communities most devastated by the economic downturn.
For the next four months I will travel the back roads and State highways through the 48 contiguous United States, uncovering stories of economic survival and endurance. In diners, bars, bingo halls and coffee shops, I seek those Americans who have lost everything--except hope.
"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places," Ernest Hemingway wrote in Farewell to Arms. This morning I begin a quest to discover that well of strength I believe still resides in the American people and communities most devastated by the economic downturn.
For the next four months I will travel the back roads and State highways through the 48 contiguous United States, uncovering stories of economic survival and endurance. In diners, bars, bingo halls and coffee shops, I seek those Americans who have lost everything--except hope.
