Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Anyway, I always suspect I'm the only person on DCUM who has this shameful family past and still tries hard to be a good liberal and donate, help others, and remain compassionate. It's just damned hard sometimes.

Another one saying you are not the only one with shameful family secrets. We are unquestionably 1%ers, and I make at least 60% of our HHI. I scored a 36 - upper middle class with middle class parents. I have a sister who has kids with multiple men and lives off of the child support for one kid, the SSI checks for another kid, grant money she has received to buy equipment for her kid with the disability (that she then spends on herself and never gets the equipment), and help from my parents, along with whatever other assistance (state medical, food stamps, etc.) she can get. She never even finished college and also never could hold a job for more than a year as another PP referred to. The odd thing is that she is the only one in my immediate family, or frankly even extended family, like that. Not everyone in the extended family is as economically well off as my parents (solidly middle class and comfortable in retirement unless spending on my sister's kids causes them to run out of money, which they fear). Yet none of them act like my sister. I keep trying to think not everyone who needs assistance is like her, and I donate to all sorts of things. But it does sometimes make me wonder how many else there are like her. Her poverty is absolutely self-inflicted. She had all the same opportunities I did, but blew them.

The fact that I got a 36 instead of something lower has nothing to do with my sister - it's a combination of having lived in small places, bought Budweiser at the beach and that emergency road stop at Outback. I didn't work at a factory - I worked at fast food places, but that was while in school so that uniform didn't count, and I don't remember it causing anything to hurt. I haven't had anything but a desk job since the summer after my junior year in college. And I don't watch much TV (except for my maternity leave ventures into Dr, Phil, Oprah and Judge Judy) or see many movies. I didn't know who Jimmie Johnson was, but I have bought Avon.

I know there are many different ways of living, and I like having lived in different places from urban to rural. I do find it hard to know what to do, however, about people like my sister. I don't see any fair way of being able to systematically figure out those who have self-inflicted poverty and those who don't, though, so if living in the bubble helps me think the number of self-inflicted people is small, I am glad for my bubble.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"I don't think the point is that if you make some effort to eat at Outback rather then bistro bis you're suddenly in touch...it's more like...try travelling somewhere where outback is your only option for going out for dinner. That's why I've been to those places. I have family and friends who talk about NASCAR, so even though I've never seen a race, I know who Jimmie Johnson is. You don't have to be interested in the STUFF, per se, to be interested in people and places where the experience is different from the bubble here. "

I say this gently, but I don't have enough vacation time to go to those places. I like to vacation in places with historical significance. I'm not interested in spending any of my 3 weeks off in rural America.

This is a very interesting point, I hate chain restaurants-just because the food really doesn't agree with me and it tastes pretty bad-but I worked in Frederick about 10 years ago-before Volt opened up.
It was awful! There was *nowhere* to get a remotely healthy lunch and I mean *nowhere*. But they did have Roy Rogers which I ended up eating quite a bit
So if people don't have access to healthy food, like in bad areas where grocery stores sell half-rotten fruits and veggies, how are they supposed to eat healthy?
Did you know WIC (google it) didn't even cover fruits and veggies until just a few years ago?
Off stepping off my soap box now...

So why did you eat at Roy Rogers instead of packing lunch from home?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"I don't think the point is that if you make some effort to eat at Outback rather then bistro bis you're suddenly in touch...it's more like...try travelling somewhere where outback is your only option for going out for dinner. That's why I've been to those places. I have family and friends who talk about NASCAR, so even though I've never seen a race, I know who Jimmie Johnson is. You don't have to be interested in the STUFF, per se, to be interested in people and places where the experience is different from the bubble here. "

I say this gently, but I don't have enough vacation time to go to those places. I like to vacation in places with historical significance. I'm not interested in spending any of my 3 weeks off in rural America.

This is a very interesting point, I hate chain restaurants-just because the food really doesn't agree with me and it tastes pretty bad-but I worked in Frederick about 10 years ago-before Volt opened up.
It was awful! There was *nowhere* to get a remotely healthy lunch and I mean *nowhere*. But they did have Roy Rogers which I ended up eating quite a bit
So if people don't have access to healthy food, like in bad areas where grocery stores sell half-rotten fruits and veggies, how are they supposed to eat healthy?
Did you know WIC (google it) didn't even cover fruits and veggies until just a few years ago?
Off stepping off my soap box now...

So why did you eat at Roy Rogers instead of packing lunch from home?

Cause Roy Rogers is really good and it's hard to find around here

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it amazing that some do not have an evangelical friend or have a friend with different political opinions. I also somewhat find it surprising that most here did not work a factory job, even if only for a summer during college or grad school.

Why do these things amaze you?

I dislike proselytizing religious people so I avoid evangelicals. I have many profoundly religious friends of many diverse religious backgrounds, but I find evangelicals to be difficult people to be around since I find them to be religiously intolerant.

As for factory jobs, again, I'm surprised your amazed. The majority of people that come onto DCUM are people who grew up and predominantly lived in suburban and urban areas and ended up with largely white collar jobs. Relatively few have even lived near factories, let alone worked in them. My jobs in college were fast food, then basic office jobs starting with unskilled jobs and then going into skilled jobs that related to my education. And my college friends were pretty similar, working various unskilled jobs in business, retail and office settings that had nothing to do with factories. While there may be a large demographic that has worked in factories as you suspect, relatively few of those types fit the background of the typical DCUM reader.

1. At every job I've had and every neighborhood there have been numerous
G od-squaders. I cannot avoid them.

2. I am from suburban md but spent two summers making windows in elkridge. My nephew recently did something similar.
Seemed common enough.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly pp, I think a good 75% of the people on here don't even know where Elkridge is (I have family there), other than that factories are not very common here

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly pp, I think a good 75% of the people on here don't even know where Elkridge is (I have family there), other than that factories are not very common here

I do. My car broke down there once.

Anonymous wrote:Scored a 12. The only RR I'm aware of is in Montgomery Village, Gaithersburg, MD and Germantown. Are there others?