It was a restless night. Dreams were rampant. There were dreams as a child when neighbors were my best friends and calls came to my mother if I made another trip to the city dump hunting for more neat junk. And, there were more fantastic dreams of government financial help when I got my master's degree. The dreams continued as I recalled the insurance costs that the company paid for my mother's illnesses. Dreams came true because there was help available as goals and needs were existent. The children of my times all seemed to be able to reach higher levels of living than their parents knew. It seemed the schools had a few kids who needed special help....and student disruptions were rare.
It was a busy night of dreaming....but not nightmares. It was a night full of successes quite different from these days when we experience a culture that offers little help for the struggling child or adult.
The next morning, as I was recovering slowly, the phone rang. It was a minimum wage tele-marketer selling tickets for the policemen's dance. I declined as a fixed-income retiree. Later in the morning, the doorbell rang. It was that damned 'Ol Sage collecting money on his new job....money for the starving children in Africa. I declined since he was accepting a minimum gift of $10.
It was confusing.....waking-up to a clamor of money seekers in a community that crumbles inspite of those who apparently are successful in their fund raising efforts. I searched for answers to these tough questions...and the answeres came.
Use an answer machine.
Open the curtain and look before answering the door...and use deadbolts.
Don't make "good friends" in the neighborhood.
There, I did it. That feels better!