It appears that I’ll be heading north to my old home town for a week’s worth of work on the second weekend in May (10-11). I’m wondering if there are enough people who might want to do a small Dopefest – quick and dirty get together for a meal, or something of the ilk, at an appropriate time on my driving schedule, somewhere along my planned route. (More than one would be fun and definitely OK, though I’m going to have to work timing carefully to do that.)
Cities along the prospective route would include:
Rocky Mount NC or South Hill VA
Petersburg VA
Richmond VA
Fredericksburg VA
Winchester VA or Washington DC
Frederick MD or Baltimore MD
Harrisburg PA
Hazleton PA
Scranton-Wilkes Barre PA
Binghamton NY
Syracuse NY
I’ll probably be coming back the following Sunday or Monday (18 or 19) if that would work better – and can have a bit more flexibility on the route then.
Memo: We need to find a place where the ambient noise level is low enough that table conversation at normal level is functional – last one I went to had a room full of buzz, and I couldn’t even hear Ultrafilter from across the table and one down.
That was a long story. As you recall, “my kids” – one of the boys we took in and his wife, who was the sister of another of them, and their three kids – had been living down here, and she rather unexpectedly got a job offer from the large nursing home in her home town – she’s a CNA, looking to become a LPN someday – at substantially more than they’d been making down here.
Because the cost of living in Wake County is relatively high and their income was not spectacular, they were eligible for “Food Stamps” – which is done by DSS-issued debit cards, good only for groceries and only to the amount of their “food stamp” allowance, down here now.
However, due to a DSS case worker of marginal competence, she didn’t get issued the card until a couple of weeks before they moved, and the card was no good until further paperwork was pushed through to give her the month’s grocery allowance that she was entitled to from the first of that month. She got that the day they moved.
So she left the card with me, put together a grocery list with her mother-in-law (whom they were staying with) when she got back home, phoned it down to me, and I bought them the groceries that they were entitled to for that month. AFAIAC, it was totally ethical – they had paid their own wages for what the DSS program was supposed to be paying for, during the month that the caseworker failed to get the stuff through – so they did have a month of groceries coming based on their residence here. The fact that I bought it and delivered it to them in the following month does not seem to me to be at all illegal or unethical – it seemed to me to be the equivalent of using your vacation money to repair your car from the accident you had, and then using the insurance check to take the vacation you’d saved the money for in the first place. Since they’d spent cash that should have gone to other needs while their food stamp allotment was pending, buying food when they got the card was reimbursement for that expense, if you will. (There may be arguments against the entire program, in some minds – but IMHO if a program is in place, a person is entitled to what they are eligible for under it.) Anyways, that was the logic of that little episode.
Plus, it gave me time with my “son” and “grandkids” that I very much wanted to get.
Poly, A group of Philly Dopers get together for dinner bi-weekly. I’m sure some of us would be more than happy to get together for the sole purpose of enjoying your company. I for one would be very excited to meet you.
I’d love to get together with you, Poly, and you’re more than welcome to crash here if you don’t want to drive the whole way in one day. (On the way up, anyway - the 18th is my wedding anniversary, so we might not be around.)
I’m free to get together on the 10th. And while I’m going on a hike near Harpers Ferry on the 11th, I ought to be back before dark if you come through that evening.
