A CRISIS OF MYTHS By G.F. Hutchinson Living five years poor among the common man. This sample excerpt of this book is provided to allow you to make your own decisions. To read this selection offline simply use your browser's 'Save Page' function. ADD A CRISIS OF MYTHS TO MY SHOPPING CART BASKET CONTENTS/ check out Click here to return to review page.

Section One: Five Years Poor
A Greyhound and a Mule Named Andy

With my two suitcases securely loaded into the dark underbelly of the Greyhound bus, and my attaché case and carry-on bag stowed above my head, I settled into a window seat just behind the driver. It was hard to believe I actually had all of my necessary and important worldly possessions right there with me on that bus.

On what had otherwise been a day filled with misgiving and apprehension, I found the smell of diesel and the ever-present vibration and low wail of the idling engine surprisingly reassuring. It all suddenly reminded me of the many long, weekend hours I had ridden buses as a commuting college student some forty years earlier.

My train of thought wandered momentarily as a young woman in her mid twenties accompanied by a lady, who I supposed was her mother, boarded the bus. I found my eyes following the mother - quite different from how it would have been those many years before. I smiled and chuckled to myself, happily breaking the tension that had been building since early that morning.

As the driver took his obligatory head-counting walk to the rear, a sure sign that we would be soon be underway, my chest was suddenly overtaken by a feeling of pure, unadulterated, terror. What in the World was I doing? How had I ever convinced myself to undertake this lame-brained scheme? What made me believe that I could actually survive out there (here), in the big world of the common man, after all, I was a college graduate! Worse than that, I had a Ph.D. and therefore no truly useful, saleable skills whatsoever! It was a frantic instant of heart thumping, lung pumping, sweat-drenched, terror!

At the exact moment when I had fully convinced myself to get up and leave the bus, I realized we were already lumbering along the dingy back streets of Springfield, in search of the cloverleaf that would access the interstate and lead me forever away from all that had been familiar, certain, and important those past thirty years. I slowly surrendered to the situation and sat back with a long sigh, eyes welling up with tears, my moment of terror silently slipping into lonely despondency. I touched the timeworn face reflected there beside me in the tinted window glass, and thoughtfully recounted how it had all come about.

Ginny and Franklin and I had been such a happy family for so many years. Ginny was a loving wife and mother, a teacher, a noted photographer of flowers and children, and most important of all, my very best friend since we had been two years old. We had both come from money-poor backgrounds, though had the good fortune to have had wise and loving parents. We had both learned early in life how important and precious other people were. From the day she proposed to me (okay, so I was a bit backward about such things!) my life became a wonder-filled, love filled, totally remarkable adventure.

Several years later, our son, Franklin, was born. When he grew into adulthood, he became my second best friend. We enjoyed doing psychological research together and, as a team, wrote many books and articles under various pseudonyms, which we used to protect our cherished privacy. We wrote for children and teens, and produced self-help and personal enrichment material for adults. We did ghost writing of "autobiographies" for businessmen, statesmen and celebrities. We always made time to enjoy life and living and each other. The three of us had traveled the World together.

Then the unthinkable occurred. On the New Years Eve just past, an intoxicated teenage driver took Ginny and Franklin from me forever. Suddenly, all the money and possessions and status and connections, meant nothing. So, I gave to charity, all that I had accumulated through the years. Although I don't believe - as others have suggested - that having done that transformed me into some kind of saintly person, it did free me to follow a new path.

In the months following their deaths, a plan began to emerge. My roots had been those of the common man - the everyday, hard working, never-seem-to-get-ahead, common man - the man who performed those tasks with which the more affluent could not, or did not want to be bothered. These were, as I remembered, good people, who struggled with all of the same problems as the rest of us, but with one notable difference. In the usual case, they had neither the training nor the financial resources to obtain the necessary help and guidance to solve those typical, everyday, every family type, personal and interpersonal problems.

My plan, such as it was, then became this: To return to a life with the common man. To live next door to him. To sit on his porch in the evenings and talk with him. To work beside him in the stores and restaurants and factories. To live on the income that he lived on. To make due the way he had to make due. To get to know his needs and his thoughts and his opinions and solutions. To understand what he believed about the important areas of life. To come to understand his goals for himself and his children. To discover ways of effectively making positive changes in his life - changes that would benefit him in his ability to cope with life and living, and which would improve the social condition for all of humanity. Then, after five years of such on the spot research, I would begin producing those very programs and materials, and I would find ways to make them available to those who could benefit from them.

So, keeping several thousand dollars in "seed money" to get started, I opened the atlas and roughed in a rectangle around what, to me, represented the heartland of America - not too far East, not too far West. Then, out of a hat, I drew a direction, bought a bus ticket that would head me that way, and, at last, there I was on that big blue and gray bus, winding its way northwest.

How would I know when I had arrived at a good spot in which to begin? I had no idea. How would I know when the time had come to move on to fresh faces and new territory? Again, I had no idea. After the loss I had just suffered, would I really be able to let myself make new friends, and if so, how would I react to having to leave them? Only time would tell. What fascinating and important things lay ahead! There was so much to be learned about others and myself.

So, there I was, gazing expectantly from the window of that big liner of the byways, beginning - ready or not - a brand new, totally uncharted voyage.

Even at the outset, I understood the importance of carefully defining what I meant by my term, common man. It was in no way a demeaning term. Quite the opposite, it encompassed much of what I believed had helped build this America I loved so much - hard work, family, comradeship, struggling against the odds, making due, picking oneself up and going on time and time again, and through it all, maintaining an ever-present sense of humor. It was intentionally restricted to those on the lower end of the income scale, but neither was that intended as a put down of any kind. It was merely a matter of definition.

In a book that I wrote back when I was sixteen, I coined two terms, which I used to describe the reactions I believed people had to being poor. One was posipoor and referred to those folks, who made being poor into a wonder-filled, positive, growth producing, and challenging experience. It was built on hope and competence, and reflected the way in which I had been raised - money poor but rich in love and spirit and motivation and in positive human experiences. It followed in the tradition of Lincoln and Carver. The other was negipoor, and referred to those who let being poor defeat them, make them bitter, and lose their way and their sense of positive values. It reflected despair and helplessness and even invoked a sense of self-justified dependence on those who were more affluent.

At the outset of this adventure of mine, my hope was that the posipoor doctrine was still alive and well, and only needed to be rekindled. The headlines over the past decade had made it more than obvious that the negipoor philosophy had already gained its insidious control in many sectors of our society. I pondered the idea that a third and fourth term - possibly the violent-prone poor and the conscience-deficient poor- would now be necessary. Hopefully, this undertaking would clarify and illuminate these, and so many other important questions.

So, there were those social goals of understanding the way of life, the thoughts and beliefs, and needs and problems, and the goals and adjustment methods of the current day common man. There were also my professional goals: To determine how my knowledge of psychology, sociology, philosophy and therapeutic approaches could be used to develop and provide specific, immediately meaningful, practical assistance to meet the needs and problems and misunderstandings of this large and important group of people.

Finally, I had a number of personal goals: To become able to again risk making friends - perhaps even loving; to determine how I would react to living on a much reduced budget and therefore not being able to have many of the amenities to which I had gradually become accustomed; to search for the source of true, inner, deep down and forever happiness, and put to the test the postulates I had long been teaching in this regard; to see how I would personally react as one of the often less respected menial laborers in the work force, rather than leading my more accustomed role of the respected authority or leader; to determine how that new role might alter my self-esteem, self concept and emotional reaction patterns; and, to determine what, if anything, I would miss from my previous, prosperous, style of living.

A day and a half passed. Then, at one point, the bus slowed as it passed a sign indicating that a small town named Anderson lay just ahead. When I had been a boy, a farmer friend had a mule named Andy. I had always felt comfortable around Andy. This Anderson looked to be a fine place to begin my new life. I hoped they took kindly to strangers. I hoped I could talk like a dishwasher rather than a professor. Heck, I just hoped I could understand the other dishwashers! I hoped my lack of appropriate experience wouldn't preclude my employability - woops, I mean, "wouldn't do me outa gittin' a job." There was much to be learned. I would use Anderson as my practice spot.

 

The Opener
It came to me as I walked East on Main Street from the room I had taken over Gracy's Grocery Store. I was searching there for The Ice Cream Emporium, which had been the only address in the help wanted ad. It hit me that I had never before interviewed for a job. Fifty years old and I really had never had to go through an interview. I had hired lots of people and had, of course, interviewed them, but now, here I was on the other side of the desk, or small, round, time-yellowed, glass-topped table as it turned out.

Marty was so old he made me look child-like. What he needed, he said, was an opener, whatever an opener was. We talked about the weather and Marty's long departed wife, Boots. We drank coffee, talked some more, and the morning dragged on. Marty was lonely. I wondered if perhaps he only ran help wanted ads in order to bring in people for him to talk to. (Good! I had just ended a sentence with a preposition!) He caught me fidgeting and glancing at my watch. "Gets busy at ten forty - not before," he said. "'S'pose I should show you the ropes, heh?"

I assumed that meant I had been hired. We spent the rest of the day going over every procedure and every piece of equipment, in the most minute detail. "You'll get minimum. I pay you in cash every Friday at three. I never give raises, just hire new help. Beeins this is your first week, if you're short and need an advance, just let me know. Be here tomorrow at eight o'clock sharp."

Not bad, I thought to myself, as I untied the long green apron and left for the day. I got the first job for which I had ever interviewed. (First job I'd ever interviewed for? I would just have to try harder!)

Back in my room I did some quick figuring and estimated that I would be bringing home about ninety dollars a week - ten dollars more than the minimum I had budgeted for myself. Then I began making out my actual budget: Thirty-five dollars a week for the room - all utilities paid; twenty-five a week for food. ... At that point my pencil came to a stop. What else would I need on my budget? I had enough clothes for quite a while. My room was furnished - bed, dresser, table and two chairs, a couch, and a combination stove, refrigerator and sink unit, which was obviously the newest addition to the place. The bathroom was down the hall and I shared it with two other roomers whom I had yet to meet. For what else could I possible need money?

At any rate, I seemed to have a momentary excess of thirty dollars a week. I felt rich, so I went down stairs to the grocery store and stocked up on staples, keeping in mind that I had no shelf space and the world's tiniest refrigerator. I spied several heavy cardboard boxes and with Gracy's permission took them back upstairs for additional storage units. By nightfall I was smiling with approval at my new home. It already felt comfortable. It would be ok. I pictured Ginny somewhere, hands on her hips, just shaking her head and laughing at me as I quickly drifted off to sleep.

Next morning I realized I needed an alarm clock. Although I hadn't slept past five AM since I was a boy, none the less I'd feel better with a back up just in case. It came to four fifty at Artie's Five and Dime. I liked the way people were willing to put their own name on their business in this place. It made me believe they took a certain kind of personal pride and that should lead to exceptional service.

That second day was far more difficult than I could have imagined. The opener, come to find out, had to disassemble all of the "soft serve" machines, wash them, and then put them back together. I had to make up the toppings for the day and refill the chocolate and cherry dip containers. The hard ice cream containers had to have the lids removed, cleaned and stored for the day. The counter and table tops had to be washed, the floor had to be swept and mopped, and the cash drawer had to be counted, a deposit slip made out and the money taken across the street to the bank. Then the hot dogs had to be placed on the rotisserie, the buns put into the steamer, the slaw and the potato and bean salads prepared and placed in the ice table, and finally the coffee, tea, and lemonade had to be made. Other things toward the bottom of the list included washing the front windows and door, restocking the shelves in the back room, cleaning the walk-in cooler and taking inventory so Marty could do the ordering for next week.

At the end of that day, I felt a new appreciation for how hard these common folks had to work, even at jobs that were not considered physical labor. I fell exhausted onto my bed and was asleep, fully clothed before I realized what was happening.

Day three began somewhat easier. I pretty well remembered how to do the mechanical tasks, though I could tell I was much slower than Marty had hoped I would be. "Today you'll work the counter," he announced. That involved taking the orders, remembering them (because he didn't write anything down), making the products, serving them to the proper tables, refilling drinks as needed, and of course, working the cash register.

I had never been noted for my short-term memory, and in this job it was absolutely essential. As the regular customers came in, they would slide into the chairs at their favorite tables, yell out what they wanted (often just, "the usual"), only to be followed by the next group, before I had a chance to start on the first. Marty not only could do all of this, but also kept up a running conversation with everyone as he did so. It seemed he had to remind me on almost every order that day. I was downright embarrassed at my ineffectiveness. By days end, I felt totally defeated, and sensed that all dead PHDs were turning over in their graves, embarrassed to include me in their number.

That night I tinkered with a category system, which, I hoped would help me remember things. Gradually I fashioned a plan. Surprisingly, it even worked the next day - well, mostly it worked. I had rapidly gained a great deal of respect for those folks behind the counters of America.

As time went on, I got the knack of things and within two weeks was actually feeling quite comfortable. I knew the ropes, I knew the customers, and I was making a fine new friend in old Marty. On Friday afternoon of my third week, Marty handed me the key to the store and announced he was leaving town for a week. I would have to run the place all day long for the entire week - that meant twelve hours a day for seven days in a row. "Save any hours over forty and add it to next week," he told me. "I don't pay overtime!"

I smiled at that, and decided it would be just the kind of challenge I needed at that moment in my life. It turned out to be a fine week and by the time Marty returned, I considered myself one of the townsfolk - and I believe most of them did also.

I remained in Anderson six months before deciding it was time to move on. Come to find out that was the longest anyone had ever worked for Marty. We both shed some tears as we said good-by that last afternoon. Two good friends who knew they would probably never see each other again.

I drew another direction out of the hat and boarded the bus once more - this time heading due south.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS OF A CRISIS OF MYTHS

SECTION ONE: Five years
A greyhound and a mule named
The Opener
Learnin' the blippin' ropes
A quick impression of my common man
So, What?

SECTION TWO: Myths held by the common
Child Rearing
Mental power/self-understanding
Problem solving
Social Relationships
Happiness, Success, Power
The Human Species
Knowledge
Work

SECTION THREE: Interrupting the self-perpetuating predicament
Some suggested points of attack
Priorities
Discontent, Greed and Impatience

SECTION FOUR: 106
My sojourn into the realm of the Common Man ends - Must theirs continue in the same direction forever?

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