Seven Red

…and she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers. – Leonard Cohen, Suzanne

Once when I was taking the train from NYC to Albany, the conductor announced the next stop like this: “In five minutes we will arrive in beautiful Rensselaer, the Pearl of Upstate New York.” Those not in the know stretched their necks to check the windows, hoping for a view of this magical place. Everybody else burst out laughing, knowing full well that Rensselaer had seen better days, and that if this was the Pearl of Upstate New York, one would do well to steer clear of the less valuable jewels.

Yesterday we took a trip to Walmart to pick up some stuff. she and I are strict non-Walmarters, but it is true what they say: in a place like this (rural Upstate about 40 miles west of Albany), you aren’t exactly flush with options. So off we went to Evil Walmart, and truly, without many regrets. Being arugula-eating urban elites, the only time we ever step foot into a Walmart is when we come here. It’s like pre-enlightened anthropology. It is perhaps indicative of the economy up here that we were greeted at the doorway of Walmart by a uniformed corrections officer recruiting for the prison industry. I insisted to she that I had to take a picture of this, since it encapsulates the post-Fordist economy so perfectly for so many rural and formerly industrial areas: giant Walmart, with the only growth industry in the area being the warehousing of “dangerous” sorts from the urban areas, many hundreds of miles off. The population of this area tends to be, moreover, much lighter in complexion than those they house, and so the whole nasty bag of it just drains you of optimism.

I did have a very nice talk with the woman who was staffing the booth. She asked me, as an initial gambit, whether I was interested in a good job. I let her down gently: I work in the other institutional space designed for the less recalcitrant population. It’s a parallel setting, to be sure. We then discussed turnover and conditions, the corrections officer union, my friend who did a stretch in Greene and Wyoming (both NYS medium facilities), and other such matters. It was all very pleasant. She declined to be photographed, and was a little concerned that I would portray the DOC in a negative light, which I hope I’m not really doing. I told her I didn’t blame her for not wanting some mildly bemused citified jerk to take her picture, and we chatted some more, and I commented on the strange double-meaning of a “secure future.” But this was really the selling point of the whole thing. When she was actually recruiting, as I overheard, she always asked “Do you feel like to could provide more for your family? Are you looking for great medical and dental?”

Then we went back to the farm, where the vistas are somewhat more pleasant:

Needless to say, babygirl loves it here, and we’re glad that she gets to see this part of life as well as the frenetic motion of Chicago:

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