What's the worst part of this story???

Mike T., Swampeast MO

DUTCHTOWN, MISSOURI, December 2, 2002

16-year old mother and year-old child die in "house" fire. House amounts to a 8' x 12' windowless manufactured storage shed. Fire believed to be caused by overloaded extension cord.

21-year-old father not there at the time but sees fire and is severely burned in a futile attempt to save them.

Parents of mother blame father--claim they went to sheriff and welfare agencies to no avail. Father was <21 at the time of impregnation.

"Home" is located very close to fathers' parents' place--the type filled with junk cars where all the neighbors complain--you get the picture. His parents refused to let them live in their house because they couldn't stand them having sex there.

"Home" isn't even on his parents' property. It's on property owned by a local university professor. He claims he had no idea anyone was living there yet he acknowledges that they came to him wanting to rent the "house" earlier in the year.

I told you that "Swampeast Missouri" is really weird!!!

Just the facts, Danno...

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Father died yesterday

No official cause but lungs were "crispy" and he was supposedly unrecognizable.

Fathers' parents' now claim it was the couples' "club house." (I might go along with that if the baby weren't there as well.)

I can't figure out the worst part either. Every level of society seems to fail worse than the previous.

Duncan_2

Side notes on Shed living.

I wonder what they were like?

Shed life is nothing new, but I figure you already know that, Mike. In the 80s when I did low-income work in the Denver area, there was a family we nicknamed "The Bickersons" because their communication was based on screaming at each other. Evidently this didn't sit too well with the daughter, so she chose to live in a metal shed near the trailer. Powered by extension cord.

Last summer while in Port Townsend WA, I had a chat with a woman involved with the chamber of commerce - tour guide stuff - who explained their version of "Shed Boys" to me. In the summer, young folks come up for work and play, and find out they can't afford a place to live. Except maybe if someone who has a spare shed to rent or trade for work. The term ShedBoy was coined by the local newspaper. Probably more of a temporary shed life by choice, nothing like you're talking about.

Poverty sucks when it becomes desperate. Most of us are pretty removed from that kind of desperation, but it's there, if you choose to look (not telling you something you don't already know). Plastic tents along railroad tracks come to mind. Squatters on Forest Service land. Shacks. Alternatively, there are people with no money who have more class than I'll ever have.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

VERY rural people

Mother was from an area where I used to do computer programming for the county health agency. Nurses there insisted at least 30% of girls give birth during high school--who knows how many more become pregnant and terminate naturally or unnaturally. They also insisted that most truly do not realize that sex makes babies--and those that do believe in crazy stories that begin, "You won't get pregnant if..."

Very little in the way of sex ed in schools in that area because a big part of the population is quite righteous--the influential keep it out of the schools as much as possible--the less influential won't let their kids attend sex ed. Many others "home school."

Not much in the way of employment to keep the kids occupied as even the most menial, low-paying jobs are mainly in the hands of yesterday's teens trying to make a living for their family.

Kids are stuck with little to do besides drink, smoke pot, shoot anything (whether or not it's moving) and, once the guys figure it out on their own, f$(#.

After years of poverty and complete loss of hope, many have a religious epiphany--generally before their kids hit puberty. They think that by sheltering (or just ignoring the problems) the kids won't have the very same problems they did.

Thus is born another cycle...

I'm NOT blaming religion--at least not any more than any of the other parts of society that fail. Just showing how it too often fits in around here. I pray it won't be so someday.

Forgot to mention that it's also an EXTREMELY racist area--from the sweetest grandma to the reddest neck young man.