Nobody talks about class, po white folks

I actually was going to skip the blog today since the spousal unit is on vacation this week and its hot as hell here, which is a rarity for Maine. However I was out on my porch this evening and ended up overhearing some neighborhood kids talking and all I could think of was back in the day that phrase about Bey-Bey’s kids.

See, I live in the town center of my little town, unlike many of my associates out here who live on 2-3 acres of land in the country. When we were looking for a house a few years ago, for a half second I wanted a house in the country, in fact I fell in love with a house on 2 acres on a hill. It was a gorgeous house until I saw that the neighbor down yonder had big dogs he let run loose and when I told the spousal unit we could we could just put up a fence, he laughed at a sista. Turns out fencing 2 acres on a hill is not the best idea.. what the hell did I know, I spent most of my time in apartments growing up unless we were at Granny’s house. There was also the fact that the hubster is a lazy man and cutting 2 acres would have killed him. That said we went with the big old house on basically no land on a block with neighbors in walking distance of stuff. KInda like a city.

The downside is that at the end of my block is an apartment complex that is subsidized housing, which makes for an interesting block, old Victorians, a few regular houses and 1 apartment complex (back in Chicago we might call this a gentrifying area) all my neighbors in the houses for the most part are pleasant, peaceful folks, but the folks in the apartment..well, I am sure they might be nice but they tend to be loud and the kids who live there work my last nerves.

In Maine, kids will play on anyone’s yard with no regard for the fact their Momma and Daddy don’t own it, thankfully the little hellions down the street have learned over the years to stay off my grass. It took me going out asking them what they were doing a few times before the realized, stay off the Black woman’s grass. Last thing I need is some kid getting hurt on my property.

However in listening to these kids, they swear and cuss like they are grown and I figure most of the time their Mommas must tell leave and don’t come back till dark, these kids are like 10 at best. Every other month the cops are over at the complex, who knows why?

Now I write all this to say that in my 6 years in Maine, I have noticed a strange observation that poor folks are the same no matter where they are, regardless of color. Yet when most folks think of Maine, they think the Bush family and Kennebunkport or maybe ole Stephen King yet in 6 years I have seen folks that remind me a lot of parts of the south-side or even the west-side of Chicago. I wanna know how come that stuff is never shared in the general media, the town next to me is a working class type of town with a fair amount of liquor stores in certain areas and rumor has it certain restaurants even accept foodstamp so I have been told. Shit that town even has a lot of churches, eerily reminscent of my old stomping grounds back in Chi-town. All they are missing is a place that sells gyros and rib tips sandwiched in between the church, the liquor store and the currency exchange.

Nope, poor folks share a lot of similarities regardless of race and Bey-Bey’s bad ass kids can even be white.