Interview with the Angry Man

Royko took to the saloons to find Slats when he needed a regular guy to talk to. It's not that easy anymore. The saloons have been shuttered, remodeled and redone. There used to be one saloon for every six Chicagoans. The favorite sport after 16-inch softball used to be trying to hit every saloon on a walk down the avenue. No one ever made it very far and if they did they didn't remember.

So now you have to go down to the liquor store or under the bridge to find the angry guy in the wife-beater. He is usually unemployed and if he has it good, the missus has a job with health insurance. All he has left is the memory of a job and a couple bucks caged out of the wife's purse for a little taste.

It kills some guys. Our dad's would've become mean or morose. This generation has just become resigned to getting screwed. It still is good to listen.

"How come they say we don't want to work? Every time they say that there is a job somewhere, a thousand people line up? If we go to an employment office, they don't give us employment; they want to give us a check. The only time I want a check is when I can't get anything else.

They always act like it's coming out of their pockets too. We worked and we paid. Insurance means that they pay off when you need it and not call you a thief when you ask them to honor their end of the deal.

I heard all the stories about those lifetimes on welfare. Whose fault is that? Instead of a check, give them a chance. Don't blame it on the unions. Give a guy a job and let him pay his union dues; let him get in a training program. Unions aren't going to complain about that.

Instead of always wanting to cut the benefits because you have something up your behind, worrying that somebody is going to get something you aren't, get more people working so more people will be paying taxes instead of spending them.

Don't mind me. I'm no economics professor. They say it's necessary that some of us are down here on the bottom. I'm just trying to figure out why there has to be such a log jam at the top"....More later.