The freedom hurts the most. Joblessness comes with certain forced humility. Not exactly responsible for anything but his or her self, the jobless person becomes responsible for everything within their sphere of influence. After all the unemployed have time on their hands and their hands are free. Every one walks away leaving laundry and dishes behind for you to do, and every one else guesses that you are lazy because you have no job. Sometimes, on that assumption, people do it all themselves, while glaring at you for not contributing to the dismemberment of society.

Our appointed leader flew in and out of town twice today. That is a peculiar feature of St Pete; being such a quiet place we notice military helicopters rushing in and out to pick up a few million dollars. Now when people criticize me for being poor they have that added glee of being part of a wave of reform sweeping the nation. Dirty hippies have no place to hide. Even when the dirt is the same working class soil under the nails of firemen and lawn maintenance workers. Even people who don’t like you sneer, "Have a good one," meaning that they do not expect to enjoy themselves in a familiar environment surrounded by the long remembered faces of co-workers and friends. They may call it drudge and toil. But we would all do best to remember that any environment where some one else cleans the bathrooms is closer to paradise than home.
The circus honors animal workers with special praise; at least they did when Günter Goebel-Williams starred as the Lion King, (actually it was tigers.) Geobel-Williams made it part of his act to shake hand of the man whose job it was to follow the elephants with a shovel. A great source of comedy, this simple gesture also highlighted the truth of any institution; the stars ride on the backs of the guys who sweeps up after the elephants, otherwise we'd all look like dirty hippies.