Frank,

Exposure to reality often kills idealism. Sucks, but there it is.

Thank for the comment. Now what the fuck are you talking about?

The Red Cross decided that a single dwelling fire was as disastrous to that family as an apartment complex to those family. It made and still makes sense to me.

So, I and a lot of other volunteers agreed to go out and make use house fire victims had a roof over their head at a local motel, meals and clothing until they could get into RC HQ for more assistance.

At some fires we found people standing in blankets provided by their neighbors and they told us don’t worry, we have insurance.

Other claimed to have nothing. The people with nothing seemed to always call at 2:00am. We’d get out of bed and discover the fire was at 6pm. We had to verify the damage. Most of them claimed burnt clothing or a toasted mattress in addition to the fire damage, no matter how trivial. These burnt items were never available. They never answered the question, “If the fire was contained in your kitchen, how did the bed in the upstairs back bedroom get destroyed? Where the ashes and metal springs?”

“Oh, we had someone haul the remains away,” we were told. They claimed to have found someone who would come out and haul the burnt mattress, clothes and furniture away at midnight.

Finally we went out to a fire and found grandma, her daughter and her granddaughter who was pregnant. The future grandmother was late 30ish. Soon there would be four generations of people on the dole in one house. Nobody worked. There were no men around.

I stopped volunteering at the Red Cross.

I’ve been unemployed and the first thing I want to do was find a job. So no, I don’t believe the majority of people on the dole want to work. They have a job, collecting welfare.