When You're 50 and Out of Work

When you're 50 or so and out of work it's a scary thing. It's not something you think will happen to you, and then, when it does, it's a very difficult thing to get out of.
When I was planning the move--though hastily, since it was for family reasons--from New York to Texas five years ago, I knew I'd be giving up my job as Senior Editor for High Times. But I thought I had a nice deal where I'd still be running the news on the web which was getting a lot of play then for HT. I had a great great stable of Drug War Journalists (Bill Weinberg, Steve Wishnia, Preston Peet, Silja Talvi, Chesley Hicks, Michael Simmons) producing material. So I thought I'd have that going while I reinvented myself as a freelancer. I also thought I'd be able to sell a column to some of the alternatives around the country--something called Drug War Follies--that would bring in regular money and could be written from anywhere. I even had an agent working at selling that for me. I figured those gigs would bring in a couple of thousand a month--enough to pay the mortgage and all bills anyway--so that I'd just have to come up with enough freelance work to buy food and keep my kids in clothes.
I didn't have much savings because that had all been spent on the downpayment on this beautiful $80 grand house and the actual move--a cross country drive in a U-Haul filled to the brim, accompanied by my son Italo and my friend Lynn--and the three thousand dollar pick up truck--a 1994 Ford Ranger, extended cab in bright blue-green--I bought when we got here.
I mean, there was no money for a riding mower so we just bought an electric pushs mower and did the acre and a half every couple of weeks that way. No money for a satellite tv thing so we settled for the two English and two Spanish channels we almost got with regular tv.
And we ate lots of roast chicken and rice or eggs and rice.
No big deal. I worked myself hard the first month, knowing I'd be selling that column and needing some pieces in the bank on that, so to speak. And I worked my fingers off on the High Times web.
Then I sent High Times the bill for the first month: $2200. They didn't respond. I called and was asked who had said I'd still be doing the web news work. I told them the new publisher had said to keep doing what I was doing and that meant the web. I was told that wasn't the case and that I should immediately stop doing what I was doing and "oh, by the way, we'll try to get you $700 on that first bill but forget anything more, okay? We're not paying."
That Stunk with a capital S.
I applied for unemployment and was turned down because I quit voluntarily.
Then the agent called: No interest in the column. Too depressing, even for the alternatives.
That stunk.
And then the story ideas I'd sent out to several magazine editors began coming back: "Not doing this type of story right now, Pete. Sorry." "That editor is no longer with us. Good luck." "Too expensive a concept."
And the jobs I did get weren't great or had bad endings. I sold a story to a men's mag and the editor got fired before it went to print. New editor was changing the format to exclude serious journalism. I sold a story to Parade Magazine about a Tree Swing in the Yard and that editor got fired. No pay.
Money was out. I borrowed from friends who didn't have it. I applied for straight jobs: the Walmart Distribution Center, the Alcon can factory, the Greenbay Packing Company, a sheetrock factory. Some days I applied to 10 places. None of them needed me. They needed men, they just didn't need 50-year-old guys from New York who were journalists and who were going to quit the moment they got a journalism gig.
So I began lying on the forms, claiming I'd been a factory worker my whole life. Barely finished high school.
No go. In those cases where I got to be interviewed, I lost the jobs when I didn't have the truck or heavy machinery licenses, or when they heard the New York accent and knew I hadn't really been working in sweatshops there.
I borrowed more money. I had the mortgage company starting to take the house six months after we moved in.
I caught a break and got a call from the National Inquirer to investigate a missing girl and was desperate enough to ask the editor to pay up front for a couple of weeks work: He had the money in my account in the morning and saved the house. I got three weeks work out of them at a grand a week, and then they paid me an extra grand by mistake and I was so broke I apologized to the heavens and kept the money. Stole it.
I sold my car's title to a loan company for two grand, knowing I'd have to pay back six grand on the loan by the time it was done.
I pawned my guitar and an old pocket watch from my grandpa for $95 bucks to buy food one weekend.
I went to work at the day labor center. Half the guys there--about 70 a day--were in the same boat as me: Factory or job shut down. Still raising kids. How to keep it all together. Some of the others were drunks or delelicts, a few were genuine hobos, some were running from child support and maybe 20 were illegal Mexicans. They always got the work. One guy explained it to me this way: "Man, if you're white or black, these guys figure you got a problem. You messed up or you're a fuck up. But the Mex kids, they're just hard working immigrants who are going to give the best damned work they got for the 5 bucks an hour they're paying."
In 31 days I got to water lawns three days at an apartment complex and earned a total of $161.50. But it put food on the table for a week.
My friend Lynn bailed me out the next time the bank started foreclosing.
And then a trip to Peru came together and I made a few bucks off that. And then the local alternative bought a cover story from me and then began assigning more. And then the tax-credit thing happened and suddenly when I did my taxes for 2003--where I earned 5 grand or something all told--the government gave me a check for 4 grand. I thought there was a mistake but they said no: that was like a one-time a year welfare check for poor people like me raising three kids on five grand a year.
And then Marc Emery at Cannabis Culture called and asked for a cover story, and then Skunk Magazine called and asked if I'd do a regular column for them. And then more trips to the Amazon with larger groups.
And this year, finally, with help from all the work and my guardian angels sending me little chunks of money from nowhere (an aunt we all loved died and left me several thousand; the government needs to widen the road in front of my house and paid a couple of grand for a sliver of my yard). And my little green truck with 270,000 miles still runs good. So suddenly, after four years, we got caught up and if I keep working hard and don't mess up or get cocky, maybe things will keep happening to keep paying the bills till the kids are all grown up.
What a feeling, though, when you can't pay them. Not for yourself. For the family. You feel like such a failure, so freaking impotent. Heck, if they don't even want you for day-fucking-labor crews holding 'slow' signs on the highway, what good are you?
And a friend of mine is now in the same boat. Microbiologist who has been working for a large midwestern city for all his life and two months ago his job disappears. At first he thought it was like a vacation: He had a few bucks saved; his house and car paid for, only one kid. But now it's two months and that money is getting gone fast. And his kid still needs to eat. And the government still wants their taxes on that house. He said he's been applying for factory and guard jobs. No luck. They can tell he's too educated to stay long. He told me yesterday he's begun lying on the resume, claiming he only finished high school. I know from experience that's not going to work for him either.
He's not a quitter and if he can hang on, someone is going to need his skills. But I don't envy him at the moment.
Being 50 and out of work is one scary time.