Originally Posted by
Lainey
I finally finished the entire book. Also read the article in Harpers. I liked these 2 paragraphs from the author:
"During my stops in Nevada and Kansas, along with three weeks tenting on federal land south of Quartzsite, a pattern emerged. Unprompted, many workampers told me how happy they were. How free. What an adventure it was. That everything happened for a reason.
I nodded along. I liked these people, so I wanted to believe. Still, I grew increasingly worried about them: under the carefree veneer, it was hard not to read something darker. I began wondering: What happens to all these people when they're too old to scrub campsite toilets or walk ten hours a day in an Amazon warehouse or lift thirty-pound sacks of sugar beets in the cold? When they can't see well enough to drive cumbersome rigs on the highway? Some geriatric migrants I met already seemed one injury or broken axle away from true homelessness. Vans and trailers don't last forever. Neither do bodies.
Just really makes me wonder why we can't do better in this country by people like this.
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