A Living Magazine - Day 358 - Homecoming - Lexington to Arlington

The dawn was a yellow gray. Overcast skies would last all day. That wasn't mean to rhyme, but I like it! The sun did break through a couple times, symbolically reminding the world below that it was June.

I got  up earlier than the morning before, packed and checked out the field beyond...

Holy poison ivy, bub! Glad I didn't go skipping through

this trying to capture fireflies the night before.

I walked downtown for the final time...

The Jonathan Harrington House. There is a picture of this house in the last post.

Imagine fighting an acre away from your house! 

I worked at the same Starbucks as the day before. It took longer than it should have to write the post (about six hours). I tried again to ask for funds. Must be the time of year, but I was not able to receive any by the time I left for Arlington.

I can find no patterns at all to this blogging career. My shortest and most uninteresting (to me) posts often get more reads than the 20 page, photo extravaganzas (with the exception of the Concord to Lexington Post, which deserved the reads if I don't say so myself). Then when I am in the middle of the Journey I'm well funded, but here at the most important time, hardly anything comes in (I DO appreciate what has come in though!). Is it that people just assume I'll make it back to Maine in 8 days? Perhaps. Why contribute when the Journey's completion is apparently a slam dunk? Well, it is what it is, I guess. I'm glad I can provide all of this for free. Ha!

I began my walk east down Mass Avenue, popping into the Stop and Shop along the way to buy a lemonade for the night...

Tesla Roadster--a cool $109,000.

All electric, highway-capable car with a 400 mile range.

"The car accelerates from 0 to 60 mph (0 to 97 km/h) in 3.7 seconds,

compared to 3.9 seconds for the standard Roadster."
In a MotorTrend 1/4 mile test this car achieved 102.6 mph in 12.6 seconds.
It has an electrically controlled limit of 125 mph.

Gorgeous basil plants, at $3.00 each.

Were I living as an actual domesticated human being, I'd buy four.

Great sign left over from the early 20th Century.

Community of Christ Church.

Accepts Christians of all denominations.

It didn't take long to reach East Lexington. And, my, what a difference. It was obviously the working class side; it would be an indication of what Arlington would look like. The Boston-ness of the towns was beginning to show. They were looking less like green parks, with sprawling 18th Century palatial neighborhoods, dressed up as quaint villages, and more like the edges of the city--which, in fact, they were.

It was only an hour and 20 minutes to get from town to town. I walked into Arlington, which didn't look much different from East Lexington...

I found a Starbucks and got online checking for sleep spots. What a stark difference at this Starbucks. There were two women baristas who looked completely stressed out. One was sweating heavily as she worked her ass off serving the continuous line of demanding customers. The place was a bit disheveled, the floor partially covered with straw wrappers, paper bags, napkins and such. Obviously, cleanliness had to take a back seat to service. When would they ever have a chance to sweep or empty the trash? At the Lexington restaurant, there were five people serving.

This scene reminded me - as if I needed reminding - just how slavish and grueling the service industry in America can be. These people REALLY work for a living. There is no time to think, or dream, or aspire to a greater career. And by "greater" I don't mean to diminish the kind of work these folks do, but the money they make (or don't make) for the amount of energy they put into it.

It is from my experience at a thousand and one restaurants all over this nation, that I have now decided to take a position on minimum wage increases. At least $12/hr mandated is appropriate for the service industry. There, I said it.

The reason why businesses of this kind are able to be on every corner is not because they are needed there (supply for demand). It is because the owners reap plenty of money to expand, on the backs of their loyal workers, and therefore, expand. If wages were to increase (by mandate), there might be less expansion. But, for godsakes, do we need thee McDonald's in every town. Some cities have over 20!

People work a 40 hour week and, because of the high rent of the areas--value-added, that their employers have helped to solidify, can't pay rent themselves. Are more people employed or able to be employed due to the low wages and unappealing kind of work? Definitively: No. What I see instead is a constant display of "help wanted" signs at these places. Anyone with a basic knowledge of capitalist economics knows that this is an indication that there is more work than people willing to do it.

The service industry expanded too quickly. It filled a need to feed car-culture, who encouraged this growth through - essentially - laziness. It seems at first that the beckoning of fattened American consumers is a kind of demand to be supplied. And, judging from numbers alone, this appears deceptively to be the case. But it isn't. Consumers are drawn to the easiest possible thing at all times--regardless of price. The supply is causing the demand. And when that happens, the inevitable result will ALWAYS be market saturation, going out of business, and economic decline. I intend to develop a more organized argument of my own for this position.

But for now, let's look at some statistics. The owner of a Starbucks cafe (for example) is making a fair living, with a gross profit margin of approximately $108,000 per year. Their employees are highly and intensively trained professionals in their field. They only make slightly better hourly wages than McDonald's workers, and are allowed to split tips (and they do get ample tips), unlike McDonald's workers. As one of the highest paying companies in the service industry, perhaps we can use them as an standard meter for what other companies could achieve?

Furthermore, these are not just high school and college kids. There are single mothers, middle aged, and even elderly people working there as well. These people work full 40 hour weeks, are often not allowed to work overtime, and unable to fit a second job into their lives. And, why should they? Two of these service jobs a week is inhumane (in my opinion). That is not what life is all about--despite the often "tough-shit!"-approach of so-called "pro-business" political voices! But, I digress.

Here is a good estimate for pay at Starbucks...

Here is a good estimate for pay at McDonald's...

Source: GlassDoor.com.

 
The only practical location to camp appeared to be along the Minute Man Commuter Bike Trail; the same one you may recall that starts in Concord and runs all the way to Boston. So I headed out before it was to dark to vet spots...

There was less poison ivy than I'd seen in Lexington, but it was around. It is a real bummer to see so many spots that in the Midwest or Northwest would have been exceptionally good, covered with this problematic plant. I walked to the Arlington Meadow (more of a swamp) area and took a side trail into the woods. It wasn't too bad, but the little green toxic plants were still popping up. I did not see one single 4 foot by 7 foot space without them.

Becoming discouraged and a bit anxious about all of this, I made my way back to the main paved trail and walked back to a large boulder near the algae covered pond on the opposite side from the meadow. The hour and the amount of regular lawn-like grass was much more conducive to laying out the green tarp as a footprint. I settled on a place behind the boulder. There was a 35 square foot area, with only a few poison ivy plants framing it. It would have to do.

I stood around pacing until the sky was dark enough (about 9:00 p.m.) to be sure that no hikers were going to pass through, then laid out the tarp and set up the tent (with the two-pole assembly I spoke of in the last post). Then I climbed in. I was quite hungry, but on the verge of getting used to it, like so many times before. I had half a bag of pumpkin seeds and half a lemonade left. I chose not to eat the seeds, because I knew if I did, I'd polish off the lemonade out of extra thirst. It would be more prudent to save both for the next day, just incase no donations came in.

The ground was hard, but relatively free of bumps and sticks. I fell asleep to the sound of the nearby church bell toning out 10:00 p.m., and slept soundly through the night.