They are millionaires on paper, but they live such frugal lives that their homes have no comfort and they see few people if any. They are a mother (72) and son (50) who live across the country from each other but live exactly the same lifestyle, absolutely dark and depressing. Never eating out, only buying broken stuff or torn stuff that they have to take home and fix which is kind of a good way to be, I guess. But the son doesn't pay for garbage service and keeps it in his basement until he can take it to the dump. When he had a 200.00 heating bill he turned off his central heat and used only electric blankets. You could see your breath in his house. I could never do those kinds of things, but he does have the cash and the real estate, so--

Anyway, I am used to living on very little money, it would be weird for me to get 50k in retirement when i barely make that now. HH makes a good point about hard work being devalued. I work to pay the rent and buy food for my two kids still living at home. I figure I will be one of those people working into my 80s (if I make it that far) or moving near Bigguns later on. Honestly, I know places I'd like to live if I were elderly that are much cheaper than where I am now, and the kind of job I have allows me to write idiotic letters to salon and to do it from anywhere. It is a skilled profession, just doesn't pay a lot. What do I do, you ask? Could be any number of jobs in the USA.

Oh, oddly enough, there is a third millionaire in the family mentioned above. There is another son who is a millionaire due to an industrial accident. He's disabled but active and not unhealthy. Lucky family.

I can hardly wait to move next door to you. You have very succinctly described Elephantman. It was as if he was sitting next to me (yikes). I read your words and it was a eureka moment. Yes! I thought, that's elephantman, sucking Dick Cheney's cock! Truer words were never written in a Salon letters thread. Keep coming back elephantman, perhaps you'll be enlightened in spite of yourself.

And Garrison, I truly enjoyed this column, keep them coming.

it's all about subjugation. Daddy beats you because he loves you and you love daddy so you need that beating. Then a nice dad like Garrison comes along and it makes your dad look really, really bad. Who can you get mad at? Not your own beating father, but the one who makes him look bad. Republicans cling hard to the idea that a cruel hateful dad is the best kind you can have. (Just ask Archie Bunker or Elizabeth Hasselbeck.) Honestly, to echo the post below, do you like being taxed to death for a war without cause or redemption while other citizens are dying due to lack of health care, where communities are destroyed because manufacturing jobs have left the building but the prison-building business florishes? Big corporations are not paying taxes, they're not employing American citizens, and most politicians are on the take and getting richer and richer, with lovely homes, child care, health care. They're being taken care of and we aren't, so socialism is alive and well in the US, it's just not for the people. Republicans like it that way? Why I don't know. A few years ago I went to hear Bill Clinton speak at Hamilton College in NY. As my daughter and I were taking our seats, I heard a woman say to her friend, "I can't honestly say I'm any worse off than when W came into office, but have you looked around you at the rest of the country? More and more people seem to be losing their jobs and homes." I remembered that comment because often when people say they're doing fine, that's all that they say.

there was some truth to this column. It seems the hard truth of what is actually occurring and what we know to be right and what we want to happen grow further and further apart day by day to the point that they seem irreconcilable. I can't watch the daily show anymore or read the news. If only a hot bath could fix it all.

and i like your answers, particularly the preface to this one. When people write to you that they're messed up and sad and guilty, you say so are the rest of us and go on to explain how to come to terms with it. And here where a lot of people would just say well it was a learning experience and you did the wrong thing so just move on, you're being very practical by telling the wife. If she knows and decides to still put him through school or whatever, then she's at least making an informed decision, and of course the LW does need to be careful which you also covered, so I just think you're great and the other letter writers on Salon are pretty great, and it's a good place to go when you're just so goddamned upset like I am now.

my fave

alpha makes more sense

thank you so much for enlightening the rest of us who didn't realize alpa chino was al pacino. your film appreciation courses are really paying off!

it's alpha chino and who really cares anyway? gyad. alpha chino is a play on words, as in alpha male, a twist on the types of characters pacino plays. Alpa is not a common-use word and so alpa chino is just a play on the name al pacino, and not a terribly clever one at all. apparently i care too much about this subject and am leaving now