What do those words mean? In practice, that means that El Paso, Texas is a very bad place to live.
I cannot fully defend that claim in this short note, however I shall do something to explain what I have in mind.
I heard those words while standing in line in that most ugly of uglies, "Albertsons", and the woman who spoke them spoke with great confidence, as if she knew what was what.
I confess that I was not so impressed with her knowledge. She had just mis-classified
me on the basis of my accent. No, my dear, you cannot simply assume that everybody with
a Northeastern accent is from New York City.
However, her arrogant boldness was not the sort of approach that made me eager to correct her.
But her words rang in my memory as I discovered recently to what depths of greediness and mean-spiritedness the El Pasoan can sink.
My father is eighty-six years old. He remembers what it means to experience an economic Depression. He lived through the so-called "Great Depression". He worked at a variety of odd jobs when he was a boy. And as a young man he joined the Marine Corps, being sent overseas to the Phillipines, Japan, and other places.
Today when he is eighty-six years old and not really healthy, he likes to remember the past, a time when he was young and athletic.
A few months ago he received in the mail a cap, a cap commemorating his service as a soldier during World War Two.
My father does not really like to brag so much as recollect. I am sure that he is proud to think he contributed to the defeat of a non-democratic power, proud to think he may have made freedom more possible for his family and those he cared about, but he wore his cap with reluctance. We'd suggested he wear it only because it was the easiest cap to hand on a very sunny day.
Today I have learned that someone stole that cap. The man who stole the cap was not a veteran of World War Two, and so he could not wear the cap..... why did he steal it?
Why would anyone steal from an eighty-six year old man in a wheel chair?
Perhaps the cap is merely lost......
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