JUNE 2, 2023 ON MY CORNER ASK YOUR VENDOR Who in this world do you most admire? Billie Holiday. Despite all she went through, she still was able to do what she did, achieve what she achieved. My favorite song of hers is "Blue Moon." — Teresa Basham, #570 In my lifetime, MLK. Among the living , the 17th Karmapa. — Ken Parks, #490 Jesus. — Gary Robinson, #224 Dead: Jonas Salk, Living: Neil deGrasse Tyson. — Markona Love, #590 Jesus. — Tony Schohl, #9 I respect everyone. — Roberto Caballero, #347 Stevie Wonder. — Felicia Wilbert, #234 Susan Beckett, for what she did for Groundcover and her vision for the organization. Glenn Gates, for his hard work and dedication. — Joe Woods, #103 Lindsay. — James Tennant, #174 My dad, for all the sacrifices he made throughout the years. And Glenn! — Dan Wilcox, #592 DANIELLE MACK Groundcover vendor No. 5 Happy Pride Month to everyone! I hope you are enjoying what seems to be the end of spring and the beginning of summer. I have not written an article since I left Michigan to get married back in 2013 to another trans woman named Shelley. A lot has happened since Shelley and I were married in Massachusetts, and quickly moved to California, her favorite place to live. After a few years I got a job with TSA, and just as I was finishing up my training with TSA, Shelley passed away. We had made plans to move to Seattle at the end of that year, plans that I followed through with. I was born in Seattle so that area is home to me. Shelley had lived there before and liked it. With my federal job I could transfer anywhere in the country. I transferred to Seattle in 2017. I loved living in Seattle, but eventually my parents and I started talking again and I chose to move back to Michigan to try and speed up the reconnection. My dad’s side of the family has been in Michigan since 1865, and aside from kindergarten, all my schooling has been in Michigan; but after so much time on the west coast, I felt a lot of culture shock moving back to Michigan in 2018. I quickly realized my parents and I get along better with a thousand miles between us and I wanted to get back to Seattle. Unfortunately I ran into some bigotry and transphobia working at the Grand Rapids airport. I filed complaints and did everything I could but never heard anything back from headquarters. They tried to fire me at that airport, but thanks to some help from the union I was able to instead get forced into a transfer to a position and airport I didn’t really want. In 2019, I was transferred to Washington D.C., where I was eventually able to get things worked out to get back to working as an officer and start working my way back to Seattle. At the end of that year I was able to get a transfer to Denver. I loved Denver! I had my voice surgery to raise my pitch and trachea shave to reduce the size of my Adam's apple done in Denver. In 2021, I transferred to Las Vegas for six months, then back up to Seattle. I eventually left TSA shortly after moving back to Seattle and found a job using my degree to work for the public schools. I worked for Seattle Public Schools for about a year and a half as a special education teaching assistant, aka paraeducator. My first year on the job I had a great team that I loved working with, but at the end of the last school year GROUNDCOVER NEWS Transitions since Groundcover the teacher decided to try something else. We got a new teacher that did not seem to like me too much, and proceeded to make my work environment very stressful. I panicked a bit and instead of requesting a transfer to another school I just quit and decided to try working for the federal government again, for the United States Postal Service. I hated that job, decided it wasn’t for me very quickly and I just went back onto teaching. I left USPS before my probationary period ended and was jobless for about six weeks before I got hired by the same school district I started kindergarten in up near Everett, just north of Seattle. After all this time I know I want to live and work near Everett. Last fall I managed to acquire my dream car, a 1993 GMC Sierra K1500 halfton pickup truck, that I am still making payments on. I am working my dream job, and currently only casually looking for my dream house up near Everett. Unfortunately I am in a bit of a rough patch as I don’t get my first paycheck from this new job until the end of next month and I am already behind on quite a few bills and struggling to make it to that first paycheck. I am trying all sorts of things to help myself, but keep running into problems. There is an end to the stresses in sight. Now I just need to get there. 3 Back in the crack The light was only peeking out, but at least I could see it, in the distance — barely — from the pit, where Uncle Sam wants me/us. It’s getting crowded down here —- as the low-income, disenfranchised population increases daily. There isn’t even talk of any real solution, let alone any positive action. They can’t seem to even slow down the spread of disparity. 'The Crack' is the fissure that is What would YOU ask? If you have a question you would like Groundcover vendors to answer in this column, email us at contact@groundcovernews.com We will be featuring vendor responses in future issues. seemingly impossible for the lower class to step out of, and what the middle class is falling into … a never ending, bottomless pit of despair. More jobs have more expenses and complications. How many jobs does it take to afford to live in a tent by the railroad tracks? … four. Yep. How do you get out of a locked box?! Where's Houdini when you need him? With all the time and energy the government spends But what's the point in wasting MARKONA LOVE Groundcover vendor No. 590 creating those walls and locking your box then hiding the key, you would think that they would have just housed people instead. I could explain how each one of those walls were created and how they contained me, but it would be futile. I’m more interested in the ways of the ‘winds of change.’ Ya, I know, that’s vague ... any more breath on the details of how the system screws us? Let’s start acting as a compassionate community. Government is not going to save us, it's way too concerned with self-preservation. We need to come together, work together … for each other. We the people need to see ourselves as a whole, as One — and start from there. We need some love and understanding. We have to find a way to appreciate each other's boundaries. This is the most comfortable and in control I have felt in years — here, living in a tent in the woods, next to the railroad tracks. Here is where I experience the most disconnection from the binding system. I wonder why we can't get parcels see BACK page 11
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