I’ve viewed the vast changes happening globally and at first was surprised that the democratic movements happening everywhere else in the world against tyrannical leaders was also starting to happen right at home. That home, of course, being Canada. The idea of OWS intrigued me and opened my eyes to a great deal of injustice that I indirectly knew of, but was entirely asleep to. For my part, I suppose it would be easiest to tell a bit of my history and what makes me support Occupy, and support it with every fibre of my being.
Many years ago, I was kicked out of my home. Mostly for my own stubborn determination to hang with my buddies and forget my chores at home. I did not do drugs and I did not get drunk and stupid (well maybe a little). Breaking the law was one of those things I didn’t do, because I felt very strongly of how my mother would have felt. The last thing I wanted to do was make her ashamed of me. Breaking her heart would have broken mine. I was sixteen when she left this world. My defiance after her death did bring me to odds with the man would have married her had she still been alive. I’ll leave his name out for my own reasons. He was raised very differently from how I was and this is what created that conflict. I firmly believed I did not need fathering, since before he came along, I was always the “Man of the House”. At any rate, he kicked me out when I did not get the dishes done in a timely manner. Bear in mind, that this was not the first chore I skipped out on to hang around with my peeps. Still I was only seventeen and still in highschool.
That brought me to the crisis center in here in my fair city. For now, we’ll call this northern Ontario city the Corp. In Corp the crisis center stands next to another structure that is used to teach kids like me how to cook, manage bills, schedules and, of course, chores. However, while this would have been the ideal place for me to live, learn and potentially stay in school, it was not the place I ended up, at least right away. The applicant list to live in a center like this was long; and that meant I had to find a place to live and a job at the age of seventeen while I was still in school. I was unable to do all three and as a result, my constantly hungry belly urged me to quit school and find gainful employment. My marks in school, at the time were in the honours range in Art, Drafting, History, Science and a few others, my marks in Math and English were unfortunately low, but acceptable to complete the year. Two months before the end of that year, my grade eleven, I quit school, having found work to feed myself. Social Services would not provide me a government issued check until I was in the Center. WTF! Of course, this was a different time, and being old enough, they required I find work and that was the end of it.
Fortunately, before long, I was able to get into the Center. But not before discovering a few things about the less than savory life that some kids can live when no longer under the watchful eye of loving parents. I drank and I partied enough to find it whenever I wanted. I was very fortunate to have not ended up with a criminal record and can safely say that I still don’t.
The Center was a specialized place run by councillors hired by the city to teach young fellas like me how to live. It was another place where I did come to rebel in my own capacity in as much as I was able to and still maintain a certain status quo. I was there for nearly a year, and I did return to school, completing grade eleven. Here comes the part where everything went to hell. It was a repeat of circumstances that children, like myself, could not escape from.
In Corp the Center allowed us to live there, paying rent and receiving a government check for the rent and personal spending while I was going to school, for a total of one year. Then they kick you back out on to the streets with the hope that what they taught was sufficient. When a person is in school, needs to eat, pay rent and whatever other bills may crop up, it is far more difficult to jungle all the demands one person can face at such a young age. In this city, it is impossible, at least for me is was. Rent was just too high, and a burning desire to remain fed always puts strains on money that cannot be obtained. At least while going to school. This little bit of history would probably beg the question, what does that have to do with Occupy?
While I was living at the Center, near the end of my tenure there, I was out with a friend to have a few beers. To my delight I was nineteen then, so it was not illegal. During that night, another rather drunken teen thought it would be funny to pick a fight with my friend. We decided it was high time to leave. We did not get far and eventually I was shoved, and just as I was about to say something funny, I got kicked in the face. Hard. That kick, spun me around and I just started walking back to the center, ignoring everything else. All of my lower left teeth shifted inward slightly. My lower last molar was broken and my front teeth mashed together, no longer a straight line. I had to eat liquid soups for a week. That year, just prior to that kick, OHIP decided it would no longer cover the cost of dental care. Unable to pay for that dental care, I have been living with a mouthful of pain for twenty years as my teeth rot out. OHIP will cover the cost of ‘life threatening’ tooth damage, but usually by giving only antibiotics and pain killers. Can’t brush my lower left teeth because it hurts like hell, though I still do, and for the most part, I’ve done what I could to reduce the damage being caused by good ol’ Entropy.
There’s my first reason for Occupy. Dentists cost too fucking much and should be covered by our health system. Jobs for me became fleeting, bad teeth are defining trait. Now onward to my other reason for Occupy. Jobs I had that cover dental care only cover a portion of the cost and the dentists in Corp will not provide any care without full payment in advance. The receipt provided would be sent to the company that covers the bill and they in turn would send a check back to me for reimbursement. Needless to say, while my teeth are not so ‘perfect’ my children's teeth are. I can’t afford dental care for them, so I make sure they take of their teeth every damn day!
I am almost forty as of this article and I have a college diploma in Microcomputer Management from an Arts and Tech college here in Corp. Prior to getting into college, I did some great jobs. I worked with a local artist hired by the city to paint the walkways a series of grand murals. I worked as photo lab technician and photographer for a few years. Then I managed to sneak my way into college. I hadn’t completed high school yet, but there were options available to me because of my age. I think, by this point I was about 19 or 20. My first jump into college was into Graphic Design. Surprisingly, this did not peek my interest very much. I found that the photography professor was probably the worst teacher in the world, and the course curriculum taught me nothing I didn’t already know given my previous employment. I bored quickly. In retrospect, I should have take a university course in Fine Arts.
Leaving college for a year, I returned and took a general arts and science program to brush up on my general knowledge, which was badly lacking by this point. This is the stuff that people would typically learn in high school. This led me straight to the Microcomputer Management program. I suppose I should mention, given it’s huge importance in my life, that right before taking the computer course, I met a wonderful woman and we got married, pretty much right away. We are still together today after fifteen years. The marriage spurned me into motion. Getting my college program into swing and learning with the fervor of a child. After my first year, my daughter was born. My daughter’s tale would be an interesting one (for the ladies), but not relevant to where I am going.
After obtaining my diploma, I sought work and found nothing. Anywhere. At least not in the field I was trying for. Which was pretty much anything in computer repair. I did some minor work at the college, fixing computers and setting up network access on computers for students who were living the dorms. I worked for as an Internet help desk technician for a company that was quickly purchased and the parcelled off to the highest bidders in the city. I and everyone else lost their jobs and there were none available with the other companies in town. Eventually that landed me into the job everyone loves to hate. Call Centers. In fact, I think that the last and only thing my wife and I have done since I left college ten years ago. So, now I have an outdated diploma, osap loans yet to pay, 4 kids, a wife, and no job. My wife currently pays the bills, while I play at being Mr. Mom. Don’t get me wrong here, I love being Mr. Mom. The last time I found gainful employment within a call center, there were nearly six hundred people employed there. I was given a medical document indicating if I continued to work in such a high stress environment it would kill me.
Let me explain that part. Micromanaged companies, the place where your bosses tell you what to do because they were told what to tell you what to do. The place where if you provide input on increasing productivity and the well being of the employees it’s ignored, delayed, or constitutes as belligerence and deserving of a writeup (or firing). The mere mention of forming a Union amongst friends whilst having a smoke in the wrong line of hearing can get the entire group fired on the spot. It’s happened, I know. I give the finger to micromanage companies and yell “Occupy This!” Anyway, it was maddening knowning that I would keep a minimum pay job, never get a chance to work on the computers I was trained to fix and program, and still keep a wife and children safe, warm, fed and sheltered. I remember walking to work, stopping to get my morning ritual coffee, but then collapsing. I did not know that could happen to people. Doctor said stress, a primary cause for concern for someone with a high metabolism and already fast heart beat. I collapsed more than once before I took the cue to see a doctor. The business should have had a permanent nurse on staff, but they don’t and never did.
Okay, I guess I’ll recap: Reason 1: Healthcare does not cover ALL our basic health needs. Particularly for our elderly and general dental care. For me that dental care will costs thousands. Something I don’t have. Reason 2: Corp doesn’t have enough doctors for thirteen thousand people. That’s a lot of people; families, old, young, and everyone else in between are without a family doctor. I found that the elite all have doctors. The nursing practice opening up here is overwhelmed by the flood people vying for anything that can keep a person remaining healthy. Reason 3: Jobs in tech have dwindled and people with oldschool learning do not have the capacity to find gainful employment within the fast moving computing industry. I would love to go back to school! Wait, I’m nearly forty, why would I do that? I cannot and will not take another OSAP loan out for school, that would just put the myself and the province into further debt.
So now I will write, I will blog and I will try to get money the way I always have. By using the skills I have. I can play guitar so I teach it. I can draw so I sell art. I can write books, so I publish them. In the future, I hope to have some answers to my own questions within my own blogs. People will say all kind of things, and strip this apart, and others will concur and give me an encouraging pat on the back. My wife and children will always love me - that, BTW, is real success. For my children I want more; I want them to have the future I didn’t have, to have the education they deserve and have their health and safety needs met.
My question to all other Occupiers out there in the camps and on the Internet is that you tell your story. Tell it and spread it. Blog, post threads, reply to news articles, Occupy the Internet. Make OWS viral. We need to Occupy Minds from this point on and for as long as it take to see the changes we all want to have start becoming implemented. When I hear some mayor say ‘You have made your point and we have understand your grievance’ and then forcibly close a park I know they mean nothing by it. There’s a lot of hot wind blowing, but not a lot of action from the upper echelons of society.
What I have written here is only a piece of the puzzle that makes me...well...me. I am Watching, Canada is Watching, The World is Watching.
PostScript
PS. I think it would be really cool if my story was read out loud at a camp.
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