The Great American Dream, 2010 Update

Trailer trash. Country hick. Old MacDonald. Yessiree, Bob. That was him--Johnston Goodman III, Ph.D.--all of those things. From a stiffly pressed designer lab coat in Corporate America to muddy bib overalls and clodhoppers out in the sticks.

So it came as no surprise late yesterday afternoon when Goodman finally snapped. He stood on his rickety wooden porch, shook his fists toward the distant green horizon, and yelled to absolutely no one, “Thanks a lot, you greedy, low-life, shit-for-brains bastards!” Then he slowly sat down in his rocking chair beside his loyal dog Dammit and began to reflect.

Goodman thought back about how suddenly and rudely he’d been kicked out of life in the fast lane. About the white knuckle, bumper-to-bumper, one hour each way, hurry up and stop daily commute he no longer made. About his unappreciative, idiotic, hypocrite former bosses at that ultra-stressful, soulless, heartless, money-obsessed Mega Corporation. About how, thanks to the incredibly reckless actions by countless Big Business SOBs on Wall Street and elsewhere, he had been the one to lose his job, despite his solid twenty-plus year track record. About the entire year he’d wasted trying to get rehired in his field. About how all his years of education and high-tech experience had been flushed right down the toilet like a nasty case of diarrhea.

Then he recalled his D-Day, the day when, with his back against the wall, he had finally decided to say “Fuck you” to The Man for good. How he and his wife had then sold their trendy split-level house in their trendy suburban neighborhood, as well as most of their trendy possessions and gizmos. How they’d bought this little mobile home on four acres of land out in the middle of nowhere. How they’d learned to grow their own corn, tomatos, cucumbers, strawberries, and more. How they’d started raising their own chickens and eating the hens’ fresh eggs. How they had, in many ways, gone 100 years back in time.

Still further he pondered. About how having far less money and less stuff had so profoundly altered their lives. About how deathly slow and eerily quiet the pace was out there in the country. About how they’d gained neighbors they actually knew and talked to. And even liked. Unheard of!

Then it hit him. Like a two-by-four right upside his head. Johnston Goodman III, Ph.D. suddenly jumped up and high-fived a very startled rooster. He had made it, after all. Just not in the way he’d originally expected. He was, indeed, living the Great American Dream. As trailer trash. A country hick. Old MacDonald. “Who’s happy now!” he bellowed. Quickly followed by, of course, “You bastards!”

07.07.10