The American Spectator : Recession Diary
Ben Stein’s Diary Recession Diary
Sunday
Now, this is almost funny but not really. It’s Labor Day weekend. Iam up in Sandpoint with my wife and my pal, Phil DeMuth. I amfeeling extremely unwell and have been since I got back from theAmerican Legion Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday. I was aspeaker there and privileged to introduce Secretary of DefenseRobert Gates to the convention for a speech on Iraq, Afghanistan,and defense policy (a superb speech) and also privileged to speakof my own gratitude to these fine men and women.
But just before I left, Phil facetiously told me I shouldbe careful not to get Legionnaire’s Disease. The joke, althoughit’s not really funny, is that now I have a vicious pulmonarydisorder that’s tearing me to pieces and as I read on line aboutLegionnaire’s Disease, the symptoms are painfullysimilar.
I do not in the slightest blame the Legion for this, butthe hotel was a bit suspect.
Anyway, yesterday I should have stayed in bed all day butI didn’t. Instead, I idiotically took some people on a long ridedown a very choppy Pendoreille River to get a dreadful meal,enlightened only by an adorable young singer named Joanie whoappeared at our table and sang her little heart out. By the time Igot back I felt 99% dead.
Well, now it’s Sunday and I am having lunch with fivelocal people who bid for lunch with me at a charity auction andwon.
These are five simply great people and what they aretelling me is making my head spin.
One of the guests is a woman who does psychiatric socialwork with kids in bad situations in Bonner County. These are thechildren of meth addicts, alcoholics, and so forth. Her stories oftiny tots left to fend for themselves while their parents go onlong benders are heart breaking — but then she got to the partthat made my jaw drop.
“What’s really making it worse,” she said, “is this 99week thing. Now that people who are unemployed can get paid fordoing nothing for almost two years, some of them just stay high aslong as they can and don’t do anything else.”
“An unintended consequence,” said I, “ofcompassion.”
“Yes,” she said, “but a consequence for sure.”
The man sitting next to me, who used to run a largesawmill near Coeur d’Alene, had another story to tell.
“We had a heck of a time getting workers even at the peakof the boom,” he said. “No one wanted to work. No local peoplewanted to work unless they were already there. The Mexicans wouldcome and work all day but the whites just would not work. Now, theycan’t get work even if they want it and a lot of them don’t evenwant it. They just want to be paid to do nothing.”
It was all very discouraging. On the other hand, thesewere some of the most interesting, pleasant men and women I haveever met in my life. I don’t think I have ever had this interestinga conversation in Los Angeles.
But by the time it was over, I was burning up. I went backto our condo for a nap, felt worse. My wife said she felt terrible,too. So, we dragged Phil along and went to the Bonner GeneralHospital emergency room a few blocks away. They treated us great.Flawlessly. They gave us medicines, wished us well, and off we wentto go home and die.
Tuesday
Wifey and I spent all of Labor Day resting. Sleeping. Emailing, more sleeping. Listening to Warren Buffett’s trains roarby. Then a modest dinner at the Trinity Café and then back tosleep.
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