Tag: Midlife

Poor urban women have been drying out urine soaked diapers and reusing them. Diapers aren’t something you can buy with food stamps and many other assistance programs, and so these desperate moms are doing the only thing they can; they reuse diapers.

I had a discussion about this with a friend of mine. She couldn’t understand why these mothers didn’t just use cloth diapers. She had used cloth on her own children. Through the eyes of a suburban or rural mother, this option seems very simple. I told her that most moms in large urban areas are not fortunate enough to own a washer and dryer. She countered back that they could wash out the diapers in a washtub and line dry them. She hadn’t had a dryer, and she managed just fine. I reminded her that many of these women live in apartments that have no outdoor area in which they can line dry clothing. Well they surely must launder their clothing SOMEWHERE! So why can’t they take the cloth diapers to the public laundry facilities? After double-checking with my urban dwelling son and his wife, I informed her that if you are fortunate enough to be able to afford living in a building that has a laundry, most leases specify that you may NOT wash soiled diapers. The public Laundromats employ attendants that make customers adhere to strict rules about washing those items. If the mothers live in a home or building that does have a back yard or area to hang laundry, items such as cloth diapers are routinely stolen from the lines, either to be sold or used by other desperate families with babies. And so the diaper drives and donations by diaper manufacturers continue.

It is so incredibly easy for otherwise kind, reasonable people to judge others simply by viewing the problems of others through their own eyes. It is so easy to say that there should be mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients. Stereotyping aside, it sounds logical. But what happens if someone fails that test? Are they then left to die on the streets? What about the children who may be depending on them for food? Would there be accessible treatment available? Or do we just consider them to be human trash, their deaths a burden lifted from society?

I have always remembered a quote from To Kill a Mockingbird. In it, Atticus Finch tells his daughter; “If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

The 4^th of July is my favorite of all holidays. It always has been. I love everything about it; the food, the fireworks, the parades, the fact that it is in the middle of summer. Philadelphia Freedom is my summertime anthem, immediately putting a smile on my face no matter what time of year I listen to it.

Thinking of Independence Days past, several stand out. There was one spent as a child at Lake Arrowhead Campground in Myrtle Beach, S.C. There was the time that I sat with my friend, watching the fireworks being set off from the boats on a lake; that was the turning point, when my friend and I realized that we were meant to be more than buddies. We ended up spending the following July 4^th as a married couple. Our son was born on July 6^th, missing a Born on the 4^th of July birthday by just 24 hours and 10 minutes.

The next several years were spent at annual back yard cookouts at my in-laws’ house, followed by the huge fireworks display at the fairgrounds. We spent many more July 4^th days in our own back yard, hosting swim parties. The best July 4^th BY FAR was the year we spent it at the beach. We rented an old cottage style house right on the main route of the Bethany Beach, Delaware parade. We sat on the front screened-in porch and watched as vacationers and townspeople decorated bikes and floats. They marched by in droves, with bands and mummers and royalty cars and politicians. Even the Governor of Delaware was there to celebrate. We had the grill going by noon, hit the beach in the later part of the day, and that night we sat in the front yard on lawn chairs, watching the fireworks display that was set off on a barge out in the ocean. My adult kids were there with their friends, and I somehow knew it would be one of the last of those types of vacations, when everyone was in the same place at the same time.

This year I plan to sit in my back yard by the pool. I will most likely fire up the grill for old time’s sake. Hopefully there will be a few unexpected guests. Ironically I will be listening to the music of Sir Elton John on this, the anniversary of our independence from British rule. As always I will be listening to the sounds of fireworks in the distance.