Last night I wrote my Senator Lindsay Graham about the budget cuts the present governor has allowed which effect the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, which is near and dear to me, since my father, myself and both of my sons have been their clients and have received their training and certain aids for the visually impaired, state funded.
I have been hearing different people's political views and find them really confusing. I do not mean to offend anyone, but I do not understand the little to no government thing. I guess if you have not had to bring up kids as a single parent on a very low income, you can complain about people like us who leach off the system.
Same with Republicans and the 'Tea Party Movement'. Half those 'Tea Party' participants are probably on some sort of assistance whether it be Social Security or Supplementary Social Security, Medicare and/or Medicaid. I admit to being on all that, being blind, but I am not going to 'Tea Party' conventions.
Okay, so I have probably made at least one person mad. Well, in reality I always listen to other people's political views and rarely get to say much about it.
Maybe they have a point. I am not saying I am right. I just do not think I could survive without the government, so I guess that is why I do not relate well to the Libertarian thing.
I suppose it is because I cannot make a living. I am not saying I do not have talent and some skills, but I have not been able to make a living due to my limited vision. The eye doctor told me I could not drive at night when I was only thirty-two because RP is progressive, and that is about when my marriage ended. I worked in my ex-husband's construction business doing the books and so forth as well as taking care of young children, shopping, cleaning and cooking, not to mention the dog and cub scouts, soccer, etc..
My younger son was in kindergarten when Ron and I split, so I went to the primary school and said to the principle, "I need a job. I will do anything. I will work in the lunch room. I will be a janitor. I just need a job. Please!"
She said, "have you thought about substitute teaching?"
I said, "no, I haven't. How do I go about it?"
She said, "go to human resources in Conway and apply." So, I did and I became a substitute teacher.
For several years I alternated between working at a small health food store and substitute teaching, often at my child's school. Our schedules were compatible and I did not have to drive at night. Daycare 'sucked'. I arrived to pick up my six year old to find him getting beat up without his glasses on and the incompetent teenage baby sitter doing nothing. I literally had to pry the boys off my child, and when I reprimanded the other boys for hurting my boy, I got reprimanded by the daycare owners for scolding someone else's child. Obviously they did not care about my child, so I never let him go back. Instead, I arranged for the bus driver to drop my son off at the health food store where I worked and this I had to get an okay from my boss for, but it worked out. He would stay with me until I got off work.
I have to say that even with a job, I could not support a family and my children qualified for Medicaid. It was a good thing because they both had some serious childhood illnesses. David had severe asthma from the age of nine on requiring his grandmother to have to drive him to the hospital in the middle of the night often, and whooping cough at the age of fourteen. I once drove him to the hospital in middle of the night myself (even with bad vision when I used to drive) with an ear infection causing great pain. Teddy had a history of seizures and other problems that started when he was sixteen.
Then I went back to school, but that is a whole other story in and of itself, a bit unfortunate.
All of this, my life in essence is the reason I am writing American Boys, partly autobiographical, about a single mother bringing up two boys in today's society, poverty and war.
However, the story would be boring if it were the same exactly to my life, at least for me, because I need some escape, part of why I write I suppose.
In my novel, the mother, Lizzy, has no disability and works very hard, drives and is very capable and tough I suppose.
Also, they live up north, rather than down south like us.
However, both sons have a unique disability. The older son, Daniel, a musician like my son, has retinitis pigmenosa like us, but in my novel he is the only family member with it. The other boy who is a few years younger and in high school, a freshman to be exact, has autism, or at least a touch of it. It is not for certain. It is just one doctor's opinion.
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