Someplace along the line our building has slipped into a full-blown depression. There are four adults living here, Jane, Brian, Kim and I. Brian is still working 35 hours a week as a waiter at Jury's. But I have to assume that he doesn't receive any benefits from that job.

Meanwhile, Kim, his spouse, was laid off. She is in some denial about the whole thing, wondering why she hasn't already found another job. I'm off work, of course, since August and then we come to Jane.

This week I came home from a professional conference to find Jane sitting on the couch in a rather dejected state. I would have thought that the hockey game she was watching had ended badly, but instead I learned that the school system here is thinking of laying off workers who meet her qualifications. That would have left the entire building with no adults working a regular job and receiving benefits.

We need to discuss with the lender what is happening. I'll try to do that today. The last time it was this bad for people around me was in the early 80's during the “Reagan Revolution.” It was a revolution that devalued the labor of people, and didn't recognize that although the society needed to retool after the World War II economic boom, that there would be victims.

Looking around Chicago and places like Danville, Rockford, or anywhere in Michigan, those victims never really recovered. And the political winds blew in such as way that society didn't seem willing to help them move along to better opportunities.

Here we are again. My industry is gone. Kim was in help-wanted advertising. It too is largely gone. Only the two people in personal services, nursing and waiting, are surviving. I'm moving along, thinking of the road ahead and I do not see newspapers as playing a big part of the future. I don't know what Kim is thinking. We are no where near as poor as we were in the 80's or the great recession of the early 70's or the depression of the 30's. But all it takes is a nudge and we could be gone.

At this stage of life, it would mean living poorly the rest of our days.

This week I saw several openings on the net, not the advertised openings, but the openings people talk to others that they want them to meet about. This recession/ depression is turning. I hope it isn't too late for us, our tenants and everyone effected.