Feet of Clay.....

The Giant has feet of Clay.....

We have all heard enough the Greatest Generation......

If you want to experience it first hand, just come out to Cachagua and watch my 82 year old mom teaching English and Citizenship to recent immigrants from Guanajuato. 4pm sharp on Sunday. You can help.

Meanwhile, we are blowing off our young people. If Hillary Clinton steals the election.....no young person will ever vote Democratic....or probably, even vote....ever again.

Tonight....Fastest of posts ever....even on dial-up.

Nike just snuck off with Alex and Rose......Rose's parents kicked her out of the house the afternoon of her graduation from Carmel High School. They turned her childhood room into a space for an illegal immigrant who could do chores better than Rose.

Rose is now with Alex....one of my sous-chefs. There are stories that I cannot tell about Rose....and about Alex....that would curl your hair, and send you google-searching for hit-men and automatic weapons.

Picture ME not naming names........The guy who launched Officer Cocksucker. Really bad.

Really bad.

Nike is sneaking back up to her parents' house to get some clothes. Last week she went to school in my pyjamas....and pulled it off. It was all she had available. You can do pyjamas in Kansas...but at Carmel Get-High School......the vintage of your BMW determines your status in your class. Nike goes to school in my pyjamas. To honors Physics and Math.....and honors History.

She claims to be fine.

She is fairly sure her family is asleep...we invited them in for dinner tonight, and the interface with actual food probably stunned them.

We invited her family in because her brother Christ-Carrier....just enlisted in the Airborne. He ships out tomorrow.

Christ-Carrier....let's call him Chris.....is a computer and math genius. Two years ago, he and his best buddy...the son of a retired East Coast assassin on our Mountain.....well, semi-retired...applied to B-School in San Jose and bailed. They thought there was a world of possiblility out there.

Last year, when Mom Of The Year melted down, Chris came back to support the family. He even took the hit that the family house burned down because of all his computer connections.....and not Mom Of The Year's crazy drug problems involving ether, glass pipes and open flames.....

After a year of sitting in the dust and ash and wreckage of his home and life......guess what?

Chris enlisted.

Perfect. No downside there. Computer/math genius becomes cannon fodder.

Suicide By Bush.

I suppose it is better than meth-amphetamines......

One more story...

My friend Susan.....best friends with my ex who does not talk to me.....took the time and effort and energy to recommend a Latino kid to me for a worker.

Susan speaks around nine languages. Last time she was here, she was teaching at Edward Alvarez High School in Salinas.

Edward Alvarez is a war hero, former POW. Ed is NOT voting for John McCain, if you are keeping score. And.....he is not saying why.

Anyway....at Alvarez Susan taught Japanese, Spanish, French and Algebra.

That kind of chick. If you look up "polymath" in a decent dictionary......her high school yearbook photo comes up.

Susan moved away, married.....gloriously....... and came back.

And recommended Juan.

Juan has a sleeping disorder. He needs more sleep than most, but wakes up at any tiny sound.....which is why he needs sleep. His Mom and Grandma have the same thing.....so there is no one to wake anyone up in that house.

What you thought there were Latino men around to take responsibility for their kids? You must be from New Zealand.......

Juan had to drop out of Alisal High in Salinas because he could not make it to class....and met Susan in a GED class she teaches in her spare time.

For some reason Jews don't do that whole Mother Teresa thing....but if they did, Susan would be right there elbowing that skinny Albanian crone out of the way. Japanese, Spanish, French, Algebra, GED, Soul Saving, Racketball........

If Susan says JUMP...we say HOW HIGH?....on the way up.

We hired Juan on her recommendation. He had another offer from Red Lobster...but I told him we would work around it.

Juan has to wrangle a ride with friends from Castroville for 40 miles, over two mountain ranges to work for us. We are in a culture that is so removed from his base culture as to be comedic....

The kid is money. He does every thing I say, and despite being so out in the weeds socially, culturally and economically....he can focus and do a good job with a knife and something to cut with good direction. His first day on the job he bonded with Giacamo Agostini....the best and most successful Formula One motorcycle racer in history......

Meanwhile, Juan had problems with his whole sleep thing. He had a breakdown.....in East Salinas. Ambulances were called, and he spent some time in the 5150 ward at Natividad....a hospital that is losing money because of all the care they give to illegals.

Juan is legal. Therefore.......He has bills to pay. He is trying to be a Mensch.

I have so little trust in our world, and am so depressed....that I carry a couple of thousand Euros, and a couple of thousand dollars in my pocket...at all times. Bottom left hand pocket if you ever find me laying in the road. And....I paid taxes on my little stash.

After three perfect days of working with us.....cold start, world change.....Juan needed money. I told him I would pay him cash.

At the end of his third day of work, I fiddled around and arranged a good deposit for the kid against his hours. We left the party and walked back to our van. I had to find the keys, and pull out of a difficult spot before I could get it together to drive Juan to meet his mom, with his pay in cash. I had it all arranged....in my pocket.

As we climbed into the van to drive off, Juan handed me a folded wad of fifty dollar bills.

"What is this?"

"Dude, it was on the floor......"

The "floor" being La Rancheria....a private road in Carmel Valley.

The kid is so clean and so honest that....even though he is in a fucked economic and social position...it never occurred to him to pocket the cash he had just found on a country road.

This is a kid from East Salinas.....a reject from Alisal High.

The wad was $400.....I owed him half. I paid him and he trundled off with his friends.....who had been hanging out waiting for him the entire five hours of his shift.

Because friendship is golden.

Juan really needed the money.

He had to pay the ambulance and the hospital their monthly vig......after his melt-down after not being able to sleep in East Salinas......

I asked him: "Why can't you sleep...what do you think about? What keeps you up? New thoughts that don't stop.....or thoughts about old things?"

Takes one to know one.

"Lots of thoughts about things I should have done.....and didn't."

Juan is SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD......and such a good kid that his only thoughts are about paying off the ambulance and hospital for their bill for the one time he let his guard down.

I knew Susan would not send me a dud.....

We are the only civilized country in the world where this could happen.

Trust me....and trust Susan.....one of the smartest and most intuitive people I have ever met......Juan could be president of GM.

Nike could as well....her brother Chris could be Bill Gates. If he survives Iraq.....and the teenage hormones that have taken him there. Where are the adults?

And we are pissing away our heritage, our progeny....and our possibilities.

Our Hope.

Vote Obama. Send him some bucks.

Cheer me up.