Hi y'all. Yes, I've lived in NC too long, and I start to sound local. I just wanted to share some things that are going on, and get some stuff off my chest, so bear with me, if you want to.
I turn 65 this coming summer, and my job will give me a small pension, which, with SS, would provide me about 19k/year. Believe it or not, that's darn near livable for me, if I stay in an area that's fairly low cost.
As another Kossack had mentioned in an earlier diary, (which I can't seem to find) it's hard to make good friends when you're in your 50s and 60s. I spent my teens to 25 in the NY area, then 25 years in Albuquerque. So, some of my lifelong friends are far away. Of course, the NY area is prohibitively expensive for a poor boy like me, and I had always thought I would head back west to my dear friends in ABQ. Blue skies, wide open spaces, chile roasting, spanglish spoken here. (if you don't know what that means, please note it's not a slam, it's a fond acknowledgment of fact) Now, follow me past the squiggle for the quandary.
So, WMFP? Well, the one thing I worried about for ABQ is the lack of water. Too many people, an aquifer that is being drained, and really, not much local food produced. I'd like to be a locovore, grow some stuff, lower my carbon footprint, all the good things that become much more difficult if you are in a near-desert environment. Then, a friend of mine sent me a link to this article, and it scared the figurative poop out of me.
http://alibi.com/...
I hope that works for you. What it talks about is the fact that Kirtland AFB, just south of the city of Albuquerque, has leaked around 24 MILLION gallons of jet fuel into the ground, beginning in the 1950s. It's like an underground lake sitting on the aquifer, contaminating the drinking water with toxic crap. As much as I fear for my friends there, it makes no sense at all to move and add my demands to a system that soon may be in enormous crisis. (assuming anyone admits that there's a problem)
So, here I am. NC is a mixed bag. It's really too conservative, and too religious for me, but it is affordable. I do have some good friends here, and some areas are quite progressive. On the other hand, with the Republicans in control of the state, the Frackers are trying to have their way, and destroy everything that's good.
http://www.environmentnorthcarolina.org/...
I know that my pitiful retirement is a minuscule part of these stories. It just seems to me that, for the working class, we're being squeezed out of any chance to have a few years of respite at the end of our hard, hard working lives. And does that not stink?
Thanks for your patience.