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Tuesday, June 1, 2021

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I've worked hard, for me, these last several days, getting ready for Saturday's craft show and finishing Nomadland, by Jessica Bruder. Like Finding the Mother Tree, this book compelled me. It may be because I seriously contemplated this life style. Remember when I thought about getting off the grid? The pictures are still on the post:



The Mercedes Benz is a lovely illustration; not in my budget . I looked at used models and other brands. I could have done that in my budget. I drove a bigger van for twenty years. But this is after I'd broke my leg and the better part of valor was do not do it. And especially, do not need to work.

Nomadland is a report on people my average age surviving in homes on wheels. The author spent several years following groups of "houseless" people, documenting their pleasures and pain. They may be a larger group than ever, swept from the American dream by the Great Depression. The houseless have always been with us, from Westward Migration through the Great Recession. The houseless are everywhere and all time; Tinkers, Romani, migrant workers. 

The people in this book are relentlessly cheerful, can-do, helpful and sufficient. They work the mean hours, jobs and pay of places like Amazon warehouses, this country's national parks, fields of produce, stocking groceries. They mourn the passing of friends, often alone, without family or friends, and carry on to the next job.

Linda, the center traveler of the book, works the mean jobs and searches the country for the place to settle down. She finds her acre a few miles from the Mexican border and we leave her contemplating beginning construction of an Earth Ship, a home built from sand filled tires. She may do it, or give it up and find a new dream.

Quoting the author,  “America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves . . . Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters.”

Paraphrasing the author, life seems to be growing more difficult for people who use the free parking places. Park rangers are using modern electronic methods to track vehicles that stay more than forty five days on public lands. City law enforcers are doing the same. And people of color certainly could never consider this life style.

The people in this book never considered this life style while they were CEO's, CFO's, managers. brokers, owners of traditional homes, apartment renters, consumers of everything they must dispose of to live in a small or tiny vehicle. Now, they are an America no one knows of or thinks about.

40 comments:

  1. I loved the movie, and the book also sounds compelling. I didn't realize that you had contemplated that lifestyle!

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  2. It's already time for the craft show? I'll be thinking of you Saturday. I know your towels will be a hit!

    I haven't seen the movie but the Nomadland book sounds excellent.

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  3. Very depressing. I read the book a few months ago and just watched the movie last night. The movie doesn't really show the grit. It glosses over the drudgery in the low paying jobs that people whose bodies are past their prime must endure at places like Amazon warehouse. My takeaway too was that Americans really do feel that this is their due. It must be those Calvinist roots.

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    1. Thank you. I have not seen the movie and may never. I read a comment on another blog that the movie "low balled" the book. Your observation would confirm that. The work these people do for minimum wage, 12 hours a day, is unconscionable. And getting hurt at it, without health insurance.

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  4. It's not a lifestyle I would want or enjoy, that's for sure.

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  5. I am hoping that B. Blogger allows this comment to take. Thank you for the heads up to Nomadland. I will assuredly buy and read it.
    Sadly that quote from the author sounds totally, completely accurate. And is true here too (though I think to a lesser extent). I hope to a lesser extent.

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  6. Good luck at your show Saturday !

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  7. Hari OM
    ...and I still do contemplate this lifestyle. I started my life in a caravan (father's work was constantly moving around the country) and a part of me would be happy to end it thus. May still happen... but there are not the places to stay that are available in US or OZ, so more challenging from that respect. Meanwhile, the Hutch will do.

    Hope you are not exhausting yourself with the impeding show prep... YAM xx

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  8. I hope the show goes well.

    I've wondered about the logistics of the off the grid life, not to follow it, just to understand the mechanics of running a life that way. It used to be a fun retirement idea, but Nomadland is more about being out of options.

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  9. If you can afford it, it is a decent life. I know people who do it. Home is a big RV. But Nomadland is a book about losing everything except the need to keep living.

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  10. I had an opportunity to see the movie but my sister told me it was depressing. I don’t think I can handle that right now. I grew up with very little, however, we had a roof over our heads (although, the rent was often late) food in our bellies, and lots of love surrounding us. We never hated ourselves or glorified our betters. We were taught to be grateful and make the best of what we had. Times, though, are different now and the world seems crueler.

    Good luck this weekend. I know you will sell lots of towels.

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  11. The US needs a living wage. A friend has a daughter that has built a sustainable tiny house in CO with her boyfriend. They did the construction themselves and can tow the house when they decide to move on.

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  12. Sounds like a fascinating story.

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  13. Good luck with the craft show. I hope you sell out!
    I don't think I can watch Nomadland the movie but I might be able to manage the book. Thank you for the overview of it.

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  14. I'd heard about Nomadland, the movie and did not know it was a book too. I've watched the movie after finding it on one of my usb's, but it didn't grab my attention enough. I think I may do better with the book, where my mind can create its own pictures.

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  15. Poverty level for a single person in the United States is $12,880. For a family of 4 it is $26,500. Minimum wage does not pay the bills.

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  16. Oh gosh... And it's even worse in Hawaii where the cost of living is through the roof. That was why we moved to the mainland. We wanted to be able to raise a family with just one income while the kids were little.

    So how can we change things in America if the rich get richer and the wage gap gets wider and wider?

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  17. Ireland is a land of tinkers, travelers, by their choice. But the homeless in America is not for the most part.
    San Diego is a homelessness destination, since weather is milder.

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  18. I read the book and saw the film a while ago. I also have considered travelling around in a van, but I worry about being too hot or too cold on a "grey nomad" trip round Australia. I also worry about the vehicle breaking down! After reading the book, I resolved not to buy anything more from Amazon - but failed to stick to this as it is so convenient. I am very fortunate in not "having lost everything" so I have a choice about how and where I live.

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  19. I haven't read the book but have seen an awful lot of YT videos of people all ages living the nomad lifestyle. I've also seen a lot of videos of mostly younger people but also older single woman who live in tiny houses. Neither of these options is that appealing to me due to the need to keep on moving and the instability of having to park your tiny house on land you must own or land other people will let you borrow. For a short time I think it might be fun as a way to see the country in a van and save funds but I'm probably past that. Now I'd love a great, big old RV with all the comfort, lol.

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  20. Fascinating both the blog you have written Joanne and the comments. It would also be difficult in Britain as well for that kind of lifestyle.

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  21. Sad to say, I think we're living through another Great Depression, a far cry from the first one, and one that affects a wide range of middle class Americans. Wondering where we go from here. We considered living off the grid in retirement and then thought better of it. We like our a/c in 90+ degree summer heat and we love the sound of our furnace in the winter cold. We worked hard for our retirement and are truly enjoying it, even with our health situation as it is.

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  22. It is both sad, tragic in fact, and beyond comprehension, that the very people most abused by the system turned to Trump in droves, and made him into a virtual god, when he was the epitome of the class that had abused them.

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  23. I see an old pal on FB who lives in an RV during the winter in southern CA.

    I looked up the place where she winters---the "camping" sites are lots with little houses, high hedges, groomed green lawns--
    and cost a quarter of a million, minimum.
    I was shocked at the opulence.
    Far from a nomad life!

    Have fun at the fair!
    Get a ribbon for your hair!

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  24. In a way, your report of this book reminds me of Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickeled and Dimed To Death: On (Not) Getting By in America." Have you read that? Again, a light shone into the dark places of people who do not make enough at minimum wage jobs to really survive. And it made me hate Walmart worse than I ever had.
    My husband had an aunt who lived in her RV, traveling about. I do not know if she did that because of desire or necessity. I doubt she had a huge amount of money stashed away.

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  25. It is so perplexing and dispiriting to contemplate the lot of the have-nots. The discrepancy is too vast.

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  26. Hope you have a good time at the fair and that you sell all of your towels!

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  27. you wrote about the book Nomadland and two days later ads for it came up on my FB page. creepy how these algorithms track you and your friends. I wonder if I hadn't read that post if the ad would have come up. have a good time Saturday.

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    1. It's enough to make us think maybe there are microchips in the vaccine. The good news is, this will be our grandchildren's fight to win. I can't wait to get to the end of Melinda Gates book.

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  28. Oh, many of us know of this. Here in the desert there's a great swath of land that's inhabited by hundreds of vans and trailers every winter. When the weather changes for the worse, everyone moves where it is cooler.

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  29. Congrats, Joanne. Saw your front stoop pic on John's (Going Gently) blog (no missing the pig! LOL) Haven't seen mine, though. Take care, Kris

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  30. It sounds like a fascinating read.

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  31. I read Nomad land a couple of years ago. I have a hard time buying anything from Amazon but as our town of 1200 has only a general store and not much else around for 45 minutes in any direction....I sometimes capitulate.
    I will not step foot into a Walmart

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  32. We used to peddle our wares at some venues in Minnesota. I enjoyed meeting the other vendors and all the people looking at what we had in our booth. Have fun and I hope you sell out!!

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  33. I saw your front steps on John's blog and recognized the mandevillas. That was cool. I haven't seen or read Nomadland, probably should. One of the places the van dwellers work is the sugar beet harvest in the fall, I think North Dakota but I'm not sure. They work 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week, piling beets dumped by trucks onto conveyor belts. It's grueling work.

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    1. Yes, the author took the description from a friend who actually did it. The author went to give it a try and quit after an hour or so. Impossibly hard work.

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  34. How did I not know that Nomadland was a book before it was a movie? I haven't seen the film (it looks too depressing for me right now) but the book might be worth reading.

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  35. I saw the movie recently. Some interesting back stories, but I felt maybe van-dwelling was made out to be a lot easier than it actually is. Like the way Amazon was seen as a wonderful place to work. And like the 84 hour working weeks mentioned above. And the sheer drudgery of some jobs, especially hard for older people. And of course very expensive van repairs (which WAS mentioned in the film).

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  36. I did see the film but the book sounds more realistic. I did contemplate doing this at one point. A friend did it, all through Canada and the states and survived on money she made through clown performances at parties. She was a registered clown.

    But from my small cabin on my last property, I realized it would really be rough living. Lack of laundry, sanitation, etc. would drive me mad. Spoiled First Worlder.

    XO
    WWW

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