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So how come I know so many folks who are losing their jobs? How come I'm startin' to wonder if I'll be next, only months after tying the knot with my love, Tanya?
Reading the local newspaper this past week, I noticed that nobody on the Business section pages is the least bit squeamish about using the word "Recession," Homes. Just a few months back, folks would grit their teeth, cough, do anything not to use that word. Know, it's no big deal. Everybody is expecting more of the same slide until next year. We are being advised to tighten our belts, while also being encouraged to keep consumer confidence up by spending more money. We can't have it both ways.
The last thang any man who's got to work for a living is gonnah do right now is go out and spring for a big ticket item, especially if he's got mortgage payments or rent to worry. There hasn't been anything close to "job security" in this country in twenty years now. During a recession, it gets dog-eat-dog real quick.
And even as people all over the country, especially in places as dependent on tourism as say your San Francisco Bay Area, are lining up to get on the dole, the Holiday Season is about to go into full swing. Kids in some small towns, though not as much in cities anymore, what with all the crazies, will be out in full regalia on Wednesday night looking for candy and other treats. The big trick for their parents has already gone though, ain't it.
Anthrax don't help one bit.
If you're in any kind of retail business, knowin' that one quarter of your income is dependent on people being in a holiday cheery kind of mood and wanting to spend money, you are probably eatin' your liver right about now, trying to find "a hook, an eye-catcher," as Eddie Murphy joked in one of his routines.
But a lot of that disposable income you were expecting on gettin', Mr. Merchant, has already gone into the charity coffers for the September 11th victims. You are SOL.
Which means all of those workers who depended on you to make the scratch to buy them presents from your and your fellow-travelers are probably wondering if they are in line for pink slips, too. They are afraid about the political situation, the war, and they are nervous about spending money.
But, like a lot of people I've been talking to lately, I'm worried that things really have changed for America. Not just the terrorism thang, either.
So I look across the kitchen table at Tanya lately, at night, and I try -- like everybody else I know -- to pretend that everything is gonnah just work out fine. That we, at least right now, ain't got nothin' to worry about. I hope she don't see any worry in my eyes. I hope she don't see my worry about the future, our future, and how maybe we might not get by. Maybe, like lots of other folks in the 'hood, we'll have to come up with some hustle just to make ends meet. Maybe we'll have to start jugglin' the bills more than we thought we would.
I'd hate to see us going into that little Western town with the sign "Welcome to Hard Times." But I know it can happen any day, without warning. So I'm trying to make myself ready for even that.
OAKTOWN, CALI - I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle the other day that over 500,000 folks have been laid off they jobs since the September 11th attack on this country. Then there was the House members of the US Congress scurrying away in fear from our national capitol the other week. Yeah, the terrorist attack had no effect on mighty America. Thangs are goin' on just like they always did. We are not injured or afraid.
A lot of the folks taking the G21 Readership Poll this week, I learned from my Publisher, chose the new motto "Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid." I'm not surprised.
Things seemed like they were sliding before September 11th; now they seem to be in free-fall. Only we keep tryna tell ourselves that it's not true. We are holding onto our sense of invulnerability, our ostrich-motto "It Can't Happen Here," like a damned cloak. But deep in our guts, I'm thinkin', we know it ain't really working.
This week's Poll: "After all that's happened, my new motto is ...?" 
WEB SITE PICK OF THE WEEK: Sometimes "small is beautiful." We've been meaning to show you the db4.0 site to make that point. You're welcome.
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