It would be difficult to question the abundance of Things in America.  Yes, I know, there are homeless people and most of them are hungry, and that is an unhappy situation.  Especially considering the abundance I see everywhere.

 

For the last few months, I have had a steak for lunch every Friday, usually at Ruby Tuesday’s.  Now, I know Ruby’s is not the only place I can do this.  In fact, I went to Red Lobster instead a couple of weeks ago at Sam’s insistence.  (She was paying, so it was an easy concession.)  I also know I am not the only one ordering steaks at these places and the many others where it’s available.  Then there’s the multitude of places one can order a burger.  In short, that’s a lot of beef being eaten in this town and across the country every day.  And yet, I cannot recall ordering a beef product and being told there wasn’t any available.  I have to wonder where it all comes from.

 

Yes, I know, it comes from cows.  But that’s one hell of a lot of cows!  Last year, Americans consumed almost twenty-six and a half billion pounds of beef.  To keep up with that, roughly one-thousandth of that number–a little over thirty-three and a half million–cattle were slaughtered.  Both of these numbers are on the rise, which means more cattle are being born and raised and more people are eating them.  There’s no way around it; these are huge numbers.

 

And that’s just beef!  Look around at all the cars, motorcycles, bicycles and other things with metal and plastic in them.  It astounds me that we–and I mean the whole human race at this point–manage to produce all of this stuff over and over again.  Walk into any mall and you’ll see what I mean.  No storefront lacks for merchandise.  Walk into one of the department stores and then think about the effort it takes to keep the store as well-stocked as it is.

 

The whole thing amazes me.  It seems almost magical we can produce such great quantities of pretty much everything.  If I invented the next greatest thing tomorrow and sold the concept a month later to a big corporation, it would be mass-produced and on shelves in great quantities by the end of the year.  This happens over and over again.  Not only do we have a lot of thing produced in great numbers, but we keep adding more things to produce!  Sure, some of it drops off, but more gets made than stops getting made, by my observation.  Look at the Slinky:  Sixty-some years after its creation, it is still selling strong.  Things mostly don’t go away.

 

So I sit here at my computer typing this blog on my ergonomic Microsoft keyboard.  I have my Logitech trackball for a mouse and six monitors from four different companies.  There’s a Logitech webcam staring at me from atop the bottom middle monitor.  Most days of the week, I have at least one meal from a restaurant.  I mention this not to brag, but to point out that even I, someone far closer to poverty than to riches, benefits from this country’s overabundance of stuff.  I don’t even recycle, although I don’t hesitate to use recycled goods.

 

Speaking of which, here’s an idea:  Recycle the landfills.  Hell, recycle everything.  There’s an abundance of metal and plastic and other things in them which could potentially be re-used.  The nation has a shortage of jobs, so use a little federal fundage to hire jobless folks to sort through and take the stuff apart from the landfills.  I am pretty sure they couldn’t keep up with the resupply of garbage, but still would add significantly to the recycle chain.  It would be an ugly, unpleasant job, but it would be a job.

 

There’s the other thing we have an abundance of:  Jobs.  I know, I know, there’s lots who would argue with that.  But a ten percent unemployment rate means ninety percent of the country is gainfully employed.  That’s a lot of people with a job.  We complain about the pessimistic side of things, but it could be worse.  Spain’s unemployment rate is twice that of the U.S.  Get into a third world country and it gets even worse.

 

Yet, there are jobs to be had.  Check the classified ads, they are there.  Sure, some of them require some steep qualifications, but they are still there.  One more bit of abundance which makes me wonder where it all comes from.

 

That, as I mentioned early on, is where my sense of wonder is really triggered.  All of the roads, particularly the paved ones; the buildings, large and small; the food in our restaurants and supermarkets; and so many other things in so many other places just amazes me sometimes.  The centuries–nay, millennia–of blood, sweat and tears that made today possible is fantastic.  The world we live in didn’t happen overnight, but that doesn’t deter one bit how magical it all seems at times.  And I like that magic.  I’ll wander through another magical moment or two with you tomorrow.