The Fruits of Our Labor
A vegetable stand in Conneaut, Ohio. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
There’s a certain trust to the self-serve vegetable stand, an expectation that a passerby will take a few squash and leave a dollar, maybe even two. It’s one of the few businesses balanced on blind faith, on the belief that people will do the right thing, even when unwatched.
And for most part, it seems, they do.
Except for the woman in the white car.
Michael and I were in Conneaut, Ohio when we saw a stand on the side of the road with a handwritten note. “Would the people stealing please stop especially the lady in the white car,” it said. The word "please" was underlined.
As we drove away, feeling a little suspicious in our own white car, we couldn’t help but wonder: Had the recession eroded trust even here, even over an ear of corn?
A vegetable stand in Union, Michigan. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
The End of the Road
A self portrait Michael made in North Dakota. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
It’s the one question Michael and I heard most: Did you fight?
The truth is, if we had, I probably would’ve blogged about it.
There was a moment early on when Michael told me how he grew up in foster care and how easily he could’ve turned out like some of the more vulnerable people we were meeting. We were barely getting to know each other--we hadn’t met before this assignment--but I had to decide that night if our personal conversation was part of our journey, if it ought to be part of Half a Tank.
On June 8, I posted a piece about our exchange under the headline: Mirrors, Thin Walls and Cheap Motels.
As newspaper journalists, most of the stories we cover require us to step out of the picture. That’s where both Michael and I felt most comfortable before this assignment. But Half a Tank changed that for us. We realized early on that all of us--you, Michael, me, and the people who shared their stories here--were in this together.
Michael and I posted more than 110 entries, but you wrote nearly 900 comments and sent dozens of emails. Some of you even sent checks and offers of help to the people we met along the way.
It is with mixed emotions that Michael and I bring Half a Tank to a close. But after more than 20,000 miles and 30 states, we’ve hit the end of the road. We’re home.
To those of you in the back seat who traveled with us, thank you for the company. Half a Tank was as much your space as it was ours. Here are some photos from the road that we didn’t get a chance to show you before:
A sign in Kansas that was likely left over from 9-11 but also spoke to the spirit we saw in some places. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
A preacher we met in Tunica, Mississippi. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
A sign we ignored several times. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
Even in hard hit Detroit, a street festival draws a crowd. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
Michael and I hadn't met before this assignment but drove more than 20,000 miles together. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
A small town in Colorado with a name we couldn't help but read more into. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
Out Of The Debris, A Survival Story
Danny Glass holds a photo Michael took of him four months ago, just days into our cross-country road trip. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
When we first met Danny Glass, he was sitting in a tent, half-naked, too weak to put on pants.
He knew he was dying.
"Can I ask a favor?" he said to Michael Williamson, the Washington Post photographer with whom I traveled across the country this summer. "Can I use one of those photos for my obituary?"
That was in June. Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago: Michael and I stand in that same tangle of woods behind a motor vehicles office in Woodbridge, but we see no Danny, just the rain-soaked remnants of his belongings: a stained couch cushion he used as a mattress. A plastic water bowl for a dog he surrendered to a better home. A hospital wristband with his name on one side and the words "fall risk" on the other.
Michael and I don't know whether to feel relief or sadness. We don't know whether Danny is dead or in the clean bed he hadn't had in a long while.
About four months had passed since we began a road trip across the country and into the lives of hundreds of Americans affected by the recession. We would drive more than 20,000 miles, down highways and through back roads, talking to everyone from an Elvis impersonator in Memphis to an asphalt paver in Las Vegas.
Along the road in California's Central Valley. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
Continue reading this post »Helping One Another
Scene outside of Kokomo, Indiana, one of the areas hardest hit by the recession. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post
Because of you, a young couple can now buy the wedding ring they desired. A family of five who feared every day that their lights would be turned off no longer needs to be frightened. And an out-of-work engineer who struggled with moving his family into a shelter now has housing options.
All summer long, Michael and I saw people helping one another survive across the country. Still, the outpouring here on Half a Tank surprised both of us. Several of you didn’t just comment about the stories you read, you acted.
Right now, five envelopes sit on my desk, each with a check addressed to either Justin Hamby or Holly Rogers, the couple who got married without the $186 ring they wanted. The lowest amount on any of the checks is $20; the highest, $125.
Another time, a reader paid off a Colorado family’s electric bill--all $722.92 of it. She’d never met them, only read the few sentences about their circumstances here. Robert Bengston, a U.S. Postal Service worker, and his wife had resorted to food banks to feed their three children, ages 2, 11 and 16. They hadn't paid their utilities in five months. When I called Bengston to tell him about the reader’s offer, he couldn’t believe her generosity. He just repeated the word “amazing” several times.
More recently, after our story about the Vazquez family ran here and on the front page of the newspaper last week, more than a dozen emails came in containing job leads for Ron Vazquez to pursue or offering space in readers' homes for the family.
One person wrote: “I have a finished basement with full bath that could be master bedroom and two extra bedrooms for the kids. They could stay with me til they are back on their feet--no rent necessary.”
Another woman who’d lost her own job and was struggling to keep the house where she, her husband and their three children live, wrote: “We do not know if we will be able to keep our home over the long haul and are working on that. But we do have it now, and it is big. Our reaction to your story was to wonder if it would work out for your family to live with us in our home, for a while, until you get your feet on the ground.”
This week, Michael and I will be filing our final posts. One will be an update about a man we met just days into our journey and whose story, in many ways, is a metaphor for the recession. The other will be a thank you to all of you who have traveled with us day after day, town after town for the last four months. You didn't have to send a check or open your home to strangers to support those who shared their stories. Many of the people we met said they just wanted to be heard.
No comments:
Post a Comment