The Lady On The Bus

First published October 2014

The other day I was on the bus when a highly inquisitive guy sitting across the aisle asked a lady a bunch of questions about her life. I mean who did this guy think he was, Google or Facebook? He appeared to have some "issues" and she was very patient with him. I mean he asked some personal questions, including if she was married, and she answered that she was divorced, only to have him ask why she got divorced! "Issues" or not, I think I would have told him that such questions are inappropriate. He asked her why she was on the bus and she told him she was coming from school. And if you guessed that he next asked her what she was taking in school, you are correct. She told him she was studying to become a social worker, to work with people with drug and alcohol problems. He said, "I hope you make a lot of money," to which she replied, "That won't happen, it doesn't pay that much, but I'm not doing it for the money, I just want to help people." Wow! All I could think of was, if Donald Trump and the Koch brothers had heard this lady, they would all have suffered cerebral hemorrhages. NOT be about money? Break out the "socialist' and "commie" monikers Rush Limbaugh.

This took me back to Mr. Milburn Drysdale, of "The Beverly Hillbillies" fame. For those unaware, "The Beverly Hillbillies" was a 1960s comedy about the Clampetts, a family from back in the hills ... I mean way, way back in the hills, who came into a bundle of money because oil was discovered on their property. They were so far back in the hills and so detached from modern life, they thought the oil company president was trying to trick them by paying them for the rights to the oil in a "new kind of dollars," because he offered them an amount in "million dollars," a term they had never heard before. And what was more, they didn't really know why oil was valuable to start with. Obviously the series was on before Dick Cheney became well known. The family wound up with many of "the new dollars," and they ended up moving to Beverly Hills, one of the wealthiest places in the country. There they met a banker, Milburn Drysdale, in whose bank their money had been deposited. During the series, which lasted for nine years, Drysdale got into all sorts of problems, because he was afraid the Clampetts would withdraw their money from his bank. Drysdale was an out and out moneygrubber. No other way to say it. When the Clampetts would try to help people by giving them some money, Drysdale would almost have one of those cerebral hemorrhages I mentioned above. He couldn't relate to people wanting to help others and then not receiving something more valuable in return. Of course the Hillbillies were looking to receive something more valuable in return, but it didn't have the kind of value Drysdale could understand.

Every day millions of people go to their jobs, some to two or three jobs. Most, and unfortunately a growing number, will not make enough in a year to be able to have much, if anything, left over, or to tide them over in case of an emergency. I was going to name some of the jobs, but that really would serve no purpose, because I would be bound to leave out too many jobs that involve the work of too many people. Some literally risk their lives to help others. Others risk their lives, not even because that's their job, but because that's what they are, people who care. Contrast that with some, a small percentage, who will make more money in ONE YEAR, than most of those I've mentioned will make in their ENTIRE LIVES, including when they took out the neighbors' trash or shoveled snow from sidewalks, or sold lemonade in front of their house as kids to earn a few bucks. The Drysdales, the Trumps, the Kochs, and others like them, can give themselves all the accolades about "job creators," "the investment class," "I built this," but in reality, they aren't the ones who make the country run, and while some thankfully give money to charities, often for tax deductions, they can never understand people like the lady on the bus.  

WORD HISTORY:
Tail-This word goes back to Indo European "dek," which had the notion of "long thin strips/strands, strips." This produced "dokls," which meant "hair of a a rear appendage." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "tagla," also meaning "hair of a tail." This meaning then broadened into "rear appendage, with or without hair," giving the meaning which we still use as the primary meaning today. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "taegel/taegl," with the same meaning, and this later became "tayl/tail," as the "g" sound died out,^ and the "tail" spelling eventually won out. The verb was derived from the noun during the 1500s, with the meaning, "attach to or hang on to the tail," which later produced the American English meaning, "follow behind secretly," in the early 20th Century. The word has many associated slang meanings, including "rear end/behind," "male organ," "the end or back end of something." The other Germanic languages have: German "Zagel" (meaning "tail," but now a bit dated, although it still is used by some for "male organ"), Low German Saxon "Tagel," meaning "end piece of a rope," Swedish "tagel," meaning "horsehair," Icelandic "tagl," meaning "horsehair, horsetail, rope, ponytail (for human hair)," and Norwegian "tagl," meaning "horsehair" (also "horsetail?"). Dutch had a form of the word, but no longer uses it. I could not find a form in West Frisian, and Danish no longer uses a form, although there may be forms in dialect still in use.

^ The loss of the "g" sound has not been uncommon in English words over time, as for instance, both "day" and "may" (the verb as in, "May I help you?") were once spelled "daeg" and "maeg."