VLVL2 (4) Erasing the past (still a Finesi romance)

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy do T
--- Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Yeah, seems like child labor is no longer a thing of the past.
> Reaganomics tried to erase the New Deal, including the Child Labor
> Laws.
> The kids do the WORK. Now, this brief scene hardly justifies my claim
> that Pynchon is coming down real hard on the '60's/ yuppies here, but
> this motif runs through the book. Where is RC? The Bush Vet is not on
> the farm. He doing chores. That's kids work. 

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time messing around in swamps, ponds
and lakes. Sometimes I caught crawfish. It was *fun*, really and
truely, and P presents it as such for Moonpie's children. There was
certainly a great deal of genuine physical labor on what seems to have
been a genuine farm (cattle-grates at the gate and everything) that the
grups are doing. The kids are supplementing the petty cash is all. Come
to think of it, my Dad grew up on a farm in the 30's and 40's, and
there was plenty of work on their modest dairy farm to go around for
parents, children, and hired-hands. Moonpie's kids are on a lark by
comparison --- you might think of them as actually buying the right to
play around in the creek with their harvest of mudbugs. It's a good
deal for them.

Working in a fast-food joint isnt' so bad either; I worked in one when
I was Prairie's age, earning just enough money to keep me in LP's and
gasoline.

mark

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