Thursday, January 12, 1984

Dear Cilco:
I know that I'm behind in my payments to you. I am going to apply to the Home Energy Assistance Program again this year. Last year they paid a lump sum of $240.00 toward my overdue bill, and I was able to catch up on the rest of the bill during the summer. Last year I drew a base of $86.00 a week unemployment benefits, but because of the lack of work last year, I am only drawing a base of $68.00 a week unemployment this year. HEAP will probably pay more towards my account than they did last year. I will get in touch with you to arrange to catch up on my bill, when I find out how much HEAP will pay towards it.

The gas and electric companies make me angry , because they're defeating themselves. They have raised their prices, home owners have gone to other, cheaper, sources of energy (wood, for example) or diminished their usage, then, they have raised their prices again, because they are supplying less energy. To make the allowable profit, the less energy we, as a people, use, the higher their prices have to raise. I see this as a downward conical spiral; the less energy used, the higher the prices, and the fewer people can afford to pay them; the fewer people using energy, the higher the prices, and far fewer people can afford to pay them, etc., until there isn't anyone who can afford to pay the bills, but the company can't go bankrupt because a profit is guaranteed.

A whole city in my state has refused to pay their natural gas and electric suppliers. Hip, hip, hooray for them!

Hip, hip, hooray for Illinois Governor Thompson too. When he realized that the state was going to be supporting many of it's residents for a long time, because of the unemployment situation, he wanted to give each person that smoked up to one and one-half cartons of generic cigarettes a week. I think this would have been a wise move, and stopped many thefts, burglaries, etc. Needless to say, his compassion for the unemployed people wasn't even considered. Instead, Illinois is in the process of building more prisons, at a phenomenal cost to the taxpayers. Perhaps, not quite so many prison cells would be needed, if free cigarettes were distributed to the smokers on welfare. I wonder if the Governor smokes?

Who is going to be housed in all those new prisons anyway? Is the government expecting the populous to rise up against the present government? I'll bet it's going to be people like Mom and me housed in those new prisons. There will be more new laws, more gestapo tactics, more people will have to pay fines, so the state, counties, cities and townships won't officially go bankrupt. There will be many people like me, who can't afford to pay those fines. I will be housed in those prisons.

Love is into nit-picking at me, the way I want to live, the car, the house, everything. I flat-out told him he could find somewhere else to recuperate after his surgery, if he didn't like it here. I am not a masochist! I have to think of Mom too.