Things that make me go HUH!

Blogging from Bruce
Vonda Keon
February 23,2009

Have you ever read something or heard something that made you stop…shake your head in disbelief and go HUH?

The other day I was reading with interest about the new Economic Stimulus Package that President Obama signed. I was a little startled to see what he and some other Washington politicians considered a middle class income. The range is from $200,000 down to $96,000 a year. I don’t know about you but this little ole country gal would absolutely love to be somewhere close to the lower of those two numbers. In my book that is a rich income!

I happen to be privy to what the income for poverty level is nation wide since I have to fill out the paperwork for the food pantry each month. Are you ready for this? Ok, a single person making $13,520 a year, is poverty level. A married couple living on 18,200 is poverty level. A family of 4 trying to pay rent, pay off a car note, send a kid to junior college and another one in high school trying to make ends meet with 27,560 a month is poverty level. These numbers are nationwide folks. It’s a darn good thing that people in Mississippi are used to having smaller incomes and a lower cost of living than other places.

Upper, Middle and Lower class are just words and nothing more. I think we are divided by working class and retired, blue collar workers and white collar workers, college educated and highschool educated. I’m sure you have known some ‘low class’ rich folks just like I know some ‘high class po’folk’. But still, seeing what the politicians in Washington consider the ‘Middle class income’ just made me go ‘HUH”?

Now to the next thing that recently made me stop and stare and go HUH? For the past few weeks I had decided that I was having some pretty vivid dreams mostly starring a rooster welcoming the morning with his loud and boastful cockadoodle do!

Living in the Town of Bruce, having chickens roaming in the yards is slightly frowned upon and if I am not mistaken there is an ordinance against such barn yard birds inside the city limits. Well imagine my surprise when, a couple of weeks ago I was returning home after a meeting with Coach Grubbs about the exchange student program, Scott and I had just come to a stop at the 4 way sign near our home and we noticed a rooster strutting his stuff.

I am not well versed in chicken-ology but I know one when I see one. And Mr. Rooster was not alone….he was chasing a cackling hen. My first initial thought was thank the Lord I am not crazy. I HAVE been hearing a rooster crowing. My second thought was, why is that rooster and hen in town? It seems one of my neighbors has decided to join the "urban chicken movement" and raise their own backyard flock.

I am all for fresh eggs but if I walk out my door and see somebody wringing a chicken’s neck so they can eat that bird for dinner I may just go ballistic. I have nothing against eating chicken, its my meat of choice. But I have an exceptionally vivid memory of seeing a woman wring a chicken’s neck when I was about 7 or 8. The sight of that headless white bird flopping around that woman’s yard was worse than any horror movie that Hollywood can dream up. I still shudder at the thought.

And now I will leave you with one more thing to ponder. Do you use the drive-up ATMS? Why do they put Braille on the buttons of the drive through bank machines?
HUH?