Control

We have a ginormous yard with lots of old trees in the back and two VERY industrious little squirrels in ot.  There is a walnut tree in the back neighbor's property and branches from it cover our yard and we get to keep the walnuts that fall from it every year--unless Squirrel 1 and Squirrel 2 beat me to them.  It's a race every year. 

I'm sitting here at the window working on the book and out of the corner of my eye I see one of them on the patio searching.  Always searching.  He's always on the lookout for anything he can, pardon the pun, squirrel away for winter.  Here it is early November and he's still out looking.  At this point hope springs eternal.

Seeing him still searching for provision to keep the family fed I was sadly reminded of a sizable contingent of our society (and don't anyone get panties in a wad because I'm not talking about those that have been laid off or are truly hard workers) that are content to allow others to do the hard work so they can collect a welfare check or add one more child to the food stamp rolls.  Even a squirrel in this country is willing to work harder for his food than some Americans.  There's no one there to hand him Obamamoney or an Obamaphone or Obamacare. 

But they can be trained to become THAT dependent.  My great grandmother and great great grandmother lived with my dad as he was growing up and they would sit for hours on the back porch feeding the squirrels peanuts while they sewed by hand the beautiful wedding ring quilt top that I now have.  The squirrels became quite tame and never missed a day when all they had to do was show up and peanuts would be tossed their way.  Had these two women not been there the squirrels would have had to go out and forage for food to survive.  Much like the squirrels that got spoiled by two little old women, that sizable contingent in our society showed up one day and someone began throwing bites their way.  Checks.  Food stamps.  Anything and everything the people could toss their way to keep them coming back.  The squirrels were controlled by the peanuts tossed their direction.  The people kept coming back and have become controlled by the things someone tosses their direction.

When you get right down to it, control is not hard to create when you have something someone wants but becomes too lazy to go out and work for.