Hi, Matt.

Habitat for Humanity has built a house for a family of bums of my acquaintance. The former stay-at-home mom bum was deserted by her husband (a real bum). She worked two jobs like a dog but still lost her home and had to move into her sister and brother-in-law's three-bedroom house with her two kids, an 9-year-old boy bum and a 5-year-old girl bum. This was rather a tight fit, and even though bums really don't deserve any better, she began to look for a way within her means to find a less stressful situation for her extended family.

HfH, as you may know, requires that the bums who end up with the houses make a commitment to help build the houses, known as "sweat equity". To earn the house, as bums usually have no cash for a downpayment, they must put in a certain number of hours of physical labor. So, in addition to going to two jobs and night school (to get the associate's degree she eschewed bumming off her husband to stay home with their kids), the mom bum also used all her weekend time for months to tote lumber, drive nails, spackle, sand, paint, and learn a little about plumbing and carpentry. The kids bums worked hard at school (although the boy bum had a little trouble with anger, but they worked that out), stayed on the honor role, and worked along with mom on the weekends.

These bums now enjoy a modest home with a yard the size of a postage stamp in which they grow vegetables and flowers in the summer. It's near the park, though, and within walking distance of the library and of the schools the kids (now in high and middle school) attend. Due to hard work, their future is brighter than any bum has a right to expect.

There's nothing quite like working like a maniac and being called a bum because someone doesn't like the politics of the person who gave you your chance to improve yourself. Jimmy Carter isn't hurt by this characterization. He couldn't care less that you think he's a dope for behaving like the Christian he claims to be. The people who are hurt are the "bums" themselves. To quote the old saying, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." And you too.

Watch how you wield the big tar brush. It has a nasty habit of spattering the user.

Regards--
Mary Anne