Spokane, WA

©2013 by LeeZard

Saturday July 13

My faithful canine companion Trooper and I are tenting about seven miles from downtown Spokane at Riverfront State Park’s equestrian campground. The sites have small corrals for folks traveling with their equine companions, although the campsite is open to all. I decide to start my Spokane experience by interviewing my camping neighbors.

Looking at their campsite across the small dirt road from me, Spokane residents Jason, 39-years old, and Susan, 52, look to be doing fine. There is a shiny red late model Ram truck with a bed camper and a trailer for three corralled horses (theirs and one for their nine year old granddaughter). Looks can be deceiving; everything was purchased pre-recession when Jason had full employment as a welder. Susan still works from the home as a medical billing clerk.

“It’s affected me a lot,” says Susan. “I make fairly good money but everything has gone up, especially fuel and food. Buying clothes is a necessity and that’s outrageously expensive especially now that we’ve taken in our granddaughter. I feel like what I make is a lot less than what is reality. Now, it’s hard to make ends meet; we are living paycheck to paycheck. It’s very hard to put anything into savings. It’s a lot of stress, a lot of stress that wasn’t there before. I never had to worry about a dollar.”

“What really hurts,” she continues, “is that we can’t go out on a date, can’t go out to a movie or dinner. We never had to hesitate to go into a McDonald’s; now even McDonald’s is expensive.”

For Jason, the hit was more direct. “As work dried up my hours got cut,” he says. “Some days I didn’t know if I get there would I still have a job? Instead of raises, I got pay cuts. The stress was incredible. If it wasn’t for my wife’s paycheck we’d really be under water.”

In what would become a statement repeated over and over, medical insurance is killing Jason and Susan. They are paying more than a $1,000 a month and doesn’t include dental or vision coverage. Their beloved camping and horseback riding trips have also suffered.

“We used to go further north all the time,” says Jason. Now we have to save two months ahead to come here, just a 15-minute drive. It’s changed me. I like to do things, get up and go. Now I just feel older.”

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Spokane is Eastern Washington’s biggest city and the state’s second largest with 209,525 people in 2012. It’s grown since the 2010 census when the population was just over 198,000.

In the grand scheme of things it is by no means a BIG city. Spokane's two tallest buildings are 20 floors each. There are many more with less than ten floors and more than a few red brick one and two story buildings from the late 19th Century, a style I dearly love.

Pedestrian traffic is light in downtown Spokane on this pleasantly warm Saturday afternoon. The streets in downtown are wide and free-flowing three-lane affairs unlike the crowded narrow streets in bigger cities.

It is a perfect day to visit Riverfront Park, site of Expo 74, the first environmentally themed World’s Fair. Today it is a crowded 100 acres of beautiful green space and amusements smack dab in the middle of the city along the Spokane River. It is a veritable goldmine for post-recession stories.

Richard and Heather Morgan are 42 and 35 years old respectively. With two kids ages six and two they have a positive story to tell. 

Heather is what I call a domestic engineer; let’s be clear, married women who stay at home still work, many of them also managing the family finances. Richard is a chemist and he says the recession actually helped him.

“I quit my job at the height of the recession and got a new job at a start-up company,” he explains. “We ended up making a lot more money (Note the inclusive ‘we.’ Here is a man who respects his wife as a partner). And, because of the recession we were able to buy a house for a lot less than we normally would’ve paid.”

Richard’s start-up company also benefitted from the recession, using federal economic stimulus grant money for its creation.

On the down side, the Morgan’s 401K took a dive, but not enough to offset the good news of Richard’s higher income. The dive was big enough, according to Heather, “that we’ll have to work an extra five or ten years.”

Positive or negative, the Morgan’s learned some things. “I learned not to listen to the news so much as to how thing are,” says Richard. “I learned not to be scared by what I hear because you have chances to make money in a good or bad economy if you play it right and you are lucky.”

Heather shares Richard’s sunny outlook, “I learned that you have to enjoy life; go out and have fun every day.” My ex-mother-in-law, a very wise woman, would have called them “FPs, Fucking Pollyannas.”

Heather’s optimism, however, is colored by reality. “Groceries have gone from about $400 a month to about $800. It’s a struggle to keep it from going to $900. Insurance is higher; we have to pay about $1,200 a month for medical insurance. Our lifestyle has changed; we don’t go out as much. We don’t go anywhere that uses a lot of gas. I keep a very tight budget now.”

Did the recession change them personally? “Heather says, “For me, I think about money a lot more, I think about it every day.”

The next couple I spoke with has a different view on life and the recession. Bob and Susan Grey are both in their mid-60s. Both are retired – Bob was a software engineer, Susan a paralegal. Bob says he saw the economic handwriting on the wall.

“I knew we couldn’t continue the way we were going (the royal ‘we.’). I saw the recession coming and took protective measures. I had an IRA and learned all I could. I pulled out of the IRA and invested on my own, especially in oil. It’s tripled in price since 1999. We just bought a new house and paid cash for it.”

The crowd at Riverfront Park was an economic microcosm. From the financial security of the Morgan’s and the Greys to the lonely frail-looking man sitting on a grass hill in the shade of a huge oak tree and the swarthy dapper-looking man sunning himself in the plaza – both jobless.

The dapper 46-year old Alex is a New York City transplant who lost his consulting business after the crash. His timing was impeccable. He started out in 2008 by helping new companies document their creation. By 2010 he had no clients.  Now he’s looking for work and living frugally on his savings. He recently moved to Spokane to live with his daughter and grandson.

“The recession changed my life,” he says. “It sucks and I’m depressed.”

Staring into space in the cool shade on his grassy hill, 55-year old William is stricken with a degenerative neurological disorder and cannot work. He barely scrapes by on a steadily diminishing state disability subsidy, hoping he can make it to 65 and Social Security benefits. Down to $190 a month, his state money barely pays for food. William lives wherever he can lay his head at night and has a forlorn, hopeless look in his eyes. 

“You will be in my thoughts and prayers,” I tell him after our conversation. I mouthed the words sincerely, yet they felt so empty.

Finally, there is Balloon Guy, the only name he’ll give. Sporting a red high hat and wearing a bright, many-colored coat he’s sitting on a bench just off the plaza creating balloon animals for kids and inner kids.

He only claims 55-years of life but I’m guessing he’s closer to 70. “I quit school in the third grade,” he says unapologetically. Didn’t see no reason for it.”

He is more than functionally illiterate. “I can’t read or write,” he explains, “and nobody wants to hire someone without any education so this is what I do.”

That was all he’d relate. Balloon Guy did not want to talk about how much he makes, how or where he lives. All he’d say is, “The recession didn’t mean nothin’ to me,” obviously unaware of the double negative.

That is not to say that Balloon Guy is stupid or some kind of idiot, far from it. As soon as I turned off my digital recorder he began reciting a complex, intricate poem about life in the forest. His pace was fast, almost frenetic but the rhythm of the piece and its descriptions were captivating. He was done before I could restart the recorder.

“Wrote that in my head,” he proudly proclaimed. 

I was astounded. Balloon Guy might be more literate than a lot of people I know.