Jim Devine wrote:
does anyone know of an article (perhaps in the L.A. TIMES) about how
having one's car break can cause one to fall into the vicious circle
of poverty and even into homelessness (in a car-oriented place like
LA)?
--
Jim Devine / "You can't say that civilization don't advance, however,
for in every war they kill you in a new way." -- Will Rogers
.
Searched... No dice for a simple googlesearch. But I will tell you that
empirically, it is quite amusing to watch what happens when a motorist
with the car in the shop boards a bus. The scene is reminicent of the
"new fish in the prison yard". Overly friendly, either stays near the
driver or finds the friendliest face in the crowd and proceeds to buddy
up and make nervous-talk...
Here's a personal story from... 1977(?)...
I had hitchhiked to the Rainbow Gathering outside of Truth or
Consequences New Mexico and found a ride back to California with a
fellow named Rick. Rick was from Rhode Island, on the run from
life-as-he-knew-it (...and perhaps on the run, period), and had driven
his broken down early 70s Lincoln Continetal to the gathering with
essentially empty pockets.
At the gathering, he met a guy who had blown up his Volkswagen bug in
Yuma Arizona. He was offering cash for a tow to Encinitas California,
near San Diego. Rick accepted.
Minor issue... The Lincoln's waterpump was almost... well, it wasn't
pumping as much as the bearings were howling and the seals were leaking,
and every 20-30 miles across I-8 and I-10 (in JULY) we stopped to pour
gallon jugs of water into the radiator after it cooled a bit.
We made it to Encinitas, dropped the car, and began to drive North on
Highway 1.
We made it as far as Cambria (San Luis Obisbo, Hearst Castle) and the
old Lincoln just stopped.
Crank... Crank.... Too bad, I think the head gasket finally blew out.
There was this milk chocolatey looking stuff in the crankcase where the
oil should have been. It was sunset, late July 197? and we went to sleep
in the car.
When we woke up the next morning, and looked it over, deciding that it
needed a garage, and we had about $25 between the two of us.
I told Rick that the only thing left to do was take what we could carry,
and continue on hitching North. He looked at me, his eyes began tearing,
and said he wasn't going to budge.
I guess he thought he had an option.
After a couple of hours, part of which was spent wandering around
Cambria just... wandering, I finally pried him psychologically loose
from the remains of the Lincoln and we hitchhiked to Santa Cruz in a
couple of hours time... with him sitting there silently.
Rick became one of the largest distributors of Pot and Cocaine in the
county for quite a few years, held debaucherous drug/sex parties, until
he moved on to points unknown (last seen: Gas station attendant in Big
Sur village 1989).
You could say his trip down the so-called behavioral sink was due to
that dead car (...or his R.I. "gangster" tendancies).
...on a serious note: I know people already homeless who have lost their
vehicle-cum-dwelling/storage for a variety of reasons and it caused
profound complications in their lives, despair, return to drug/alcohol
abuse, deep-depression cycles...
Leigh
http://leighm.net/
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