On Thursday, we leave for home
This was originally written as a journalistic profile as a college assignment but has since been anonymised to protect the identities of those involved.
Tucked away in Oxnard California, some distance down South Oxnard Boulevard sits a motorcade parade. There are no floats or fireworks, no holiday fills the calendar, it’s just another Friday night at the drive-thru. Amongst this crowd idles a cherry red 1961 Ford Lineup.
The ‘61 Lineup pulls up somewhere in the middle, blending amongst the other colourful cars. The air is thick with buttered popcorn seasoned with cigarette smoke, the smell is comforting and familiar. EllisRipley sits on the driver’s side, his window rolled down letting smoke from his cigarette mingle with the plumes of others. The family car is filled tonight, Ellis talked into playing the game of chauffeur, again. Perhaps this is a part of the 1950s quintessential family image, or maybe his younger sister Sally is just that persuasive.
Ellis is a petite man who doesn’t take up much room in a car. On a good day he reaches 5’9 and his shoulders are narrow, he’s built like an olympic cyclist. Ellis is known for his eyes, baby blues, that are always crinkled from the smile he often wears. He is the picture perfect All-American boy for the 50s, and the drive-thru is his empire. While there is always a degree of interest in the featured film , the drive-thru stands, mainly, as headquarters for the local teens. Between the snack bar and an alibi for curfew, the drive-thru is a haven for young adults.
Ellis is good with small talk and good at maneuvering crowds. Others are happy to see him and happier to get a moment of his time. He often hears people calling “how do you do?” or a “good to see you, Ellis” as he meanders around. While he isn’t a jock or class president, he fits in well enough that decades later others will still ask about him at high school reunions.
Ellis loves the drive-thru, loves his final days of high school, loves readying himself for college while watching and conversing with others his age. It’s the start of a race, for him, the days before he would make it, the days before he succeeds. Like an astronaut, Ellis is readying for his first launch. It was here, tucked between cars and sipping on a Coke, that Ellisfirst grabbed hold of his dream.
This is EllisRipley who, to this day, hangs onto this disintegrating American Dream of his generation. He never left his 1950s ideals, looking for success and recognition in every form, a place where he wins all wars, without jeopardy of ego or image, without fear. What he found was a lonely, barren place of emotional isolation. And he is stuck here, frozen; the memory of his dream keeps him in the shadows of a past time and place. “It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination.” (Serling, 1959).
Four years ago a man was elected president. A man who promised to return Ellis, and others like him, to a time that resembled their dream; promised to return them home. In just a moment we'll hear more about Ellis, his goals and ambitions, and the toll on his mind, body and spirit. Sadly, though, this is not The Twilight Zone. This is EllisRipley, just another man lost to the American Dream.
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Today Ellis is 76 and lives in Sarasota, Florida, with his wife Charlotte. They own a small two bedroom ranch in the planned community Lakewood Ranch, where they have been for 13 years. He works a few days a week, 20 minutes away as a security guard at the Ringling School of Design.
No matter the day, whether he has work or not, every morning starts the same. Ellis wakes up with the sun and makes coffee. He takes it black and as strong as his red Black and Decker coffee maker will allow.
The mug today is a black 8 oz cup with the word Becker scribbled across it in silver. It was a keepsake given to him by his brother in law, Dave, to celebrate the 100th episode of Dave’s second hit TV show. The coffee blends into the dark glossy ceramic, only giving itself away when a few air bubbles risk rising to the surface. Ellis will spend most of his day refilling this mug.
“I can have anywhere from 6-12 cups a day,” Ellis says as he sits in his office, leaning back into a standard leather office chair that could be found at your local Office Depot. “I often start and end my day with coffee.”
Even though he has moved several times, across the country, over the past 50 years, his office has always seemed to stay the same. The walls are a nondescript beige colour but sitting against the left wall sits an oak roll top desk. This desk is one that all members of the Ripley family remember. The desk is a monster of wood, with four drawers of varying sizes stacked into two heavy legs and another centre top drawer stretches the space between. While a person may consider that enough storage, this desk offers more. Back against the wall, just under the roll top cover, sits a handful of cubbies that are filled with bills, notes, knick-knacks, old newspapers and loose pens.
This desk isn’t the only unique item in Ellis’ office. The man has spent decades collecting tchotchkes. The room resembles an old time General Store, or a Cracker Barrel if you’re lucky enough to have been on a road trip. The walls have prints and posters from different decades and countries, there are framed newspaper clippings from major events; the moon landing, Cubs winning the world series, and his granddaughters making the local papers. There’s a Mr. Peanut figurine tucked between a vintage Mr. Potato Head and a slightly tangled Slinky, all pushed and crammed together with a mass of other figurines and collectables.
Here he spends most of his day. He’ll rotate between walking, biking, or watching Netflix with Charlotte. To him, this is his domain; to others it’s his echo chamber.
While most of his artifacts are eclectic and joyful, his computer sits at the centre of it all. It acts as a vortex, a world of absolutes, a place where everything is black and white, and pulls him into news story after news story of how the world is burning. To him, and his good friend Rush Limbaugh, the world is not really burning but the younger generations are about to set things on fire.
“The Internet,” Ellissays about where he gets his news. “I used to use Facebook, Twitter and Google but find too much is censored that would typically support my views or people I support.”
Now, Ellis is not in the minority for using the internet or social media to get his news, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a dangerous game. All generations have gone digital, following their chosen news network closely and leaving little room, if any, for counterpoints to wiggle their way into their line of sight. It’s a world of information chosen rather than given, people searching out confirmation biases and then leaving happily as if they’ve truly uncovered the answers to it all.
For Ellisthese confirmation biases feed his delusion.
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Growing up Ellis and his siblings were raised in Southern California, in the lower-middle class town of Oxnard, California. They lived in a three bedroom ranch, just enough room for brothers Ellis, John and Don, the boys, to share a room. They were raised with the church and their parents’ accepting and loving beliefs. Growing up with just enough of what you need, and sometimes a little of what you want, seemed satisfactory.
“My parents raised us—my two brothers, sister and me—to believe that all people are created equal in the eyes of God and our personal choices and behavior will determine our lives” Ellissays reminiscing on his family values. “They emphasized doing one’s best in an honest, ethical, and legal fashion… our personal choices would drive our lives… do not blame others for your own mistakes and credit those who contribute to your own successes. Be kind and considerate.”
Childhood and even early adolescence was lovely. It wasn’t until Ellis left to finish college, at the University of California, Santa Charlotte, that he became aware of the disparities between himself and his more affluent friends.
Growing up as a Baby Boomer, Elliswas raised in the peak of toxic masculinity and the expectation to carry the world was dropped on his shoulders. Even the open minded and accepting memo from his parents didn’t help to ease the pressure. Society told him that men are strong mentally and physically. Society told him he had to have an important job with a big title, the perfect family and a big, two-story house to be a success. Patriotism and belief in his country were woven into this idyllic reality. The U.S. was truly his beacon of hope. It told him that he deserved the best of everything. He just had to work hard and be a good person.
College is the time when people grow and explore their talents, opinions, and values. For Ellis, it was where he found a talent he had never explored. Music became his grounding force, his solace away from home, a break from studying and partying. It was him and his guitar. Music became such a part of his life that as graduation approached, he dreamed beyond what he had imagined back in the drive-thru. He saw more than a family and a house, he saw a life of travel and songs.
But in 1968, Ellis, and so many his age, had to make a decision. The war in Vietnam had been raging for nearly 15 years and a nationwide draft was the future for all young men. Fresh out of college, Ellis’ options were taken away. With hope of avoiding years in a fox hole, Ellis made the early call to enlist.
It was a scary decision, but a fateful one. Ellis had always been a terrible sleeper. He had night terrors, snored loudly, and was known for sleepwalking. This seemingly insignificant disorder, and the decision to enlist, may very well have saved his life. Between Ellis’ college degree and the danger his multitude of sleep disorders brought to a troop hiding in the jungle, he was not an ideal candidate for the front lines. Instead he was stationed in a General’s Headquarters in Germany. After four years of college and personal growth, Ellisblindly trusted his country and felt in control of his destiny.
What Ellis never realized was that this faith, this undying hope that his country was not misleading him, that his country knew what is right, and that the U.S.’s intentions are totally pure, permanently placed a pair of rose coloured glasses on him.
Ellis doesn’t talk much about his time working as a Captain in the U.S. Army. When questioned about his service from 1968-1972, he’ll often only tell tales of travel and the story of him meeting his wife and starting a family. He paints these years with every colour, portraying his three month whirlwind relationship with Charlotte as though it’s the next best selling romance novel. Or how having their first child abroad was the best gift, and an experience he never would have been able to imagine. He doesn’t focus on any fear or anger. He doesn’t talk of failed tactics or the rare successes. To him, his years serving his country kicked off the life he was meant to live. It was the start of his family, the return to the dream he had grown up with.
He finally let go of the short lived“vagabond dreams” and grabbed hold of the “true American Dream”. He traded playing the guitar for being the breadwinner. He traded writing music for writing human resources policies in Corporate America. He threw away the joy music brought him for the security a well paying job gave him.
Ellis’ descent was a slow burn. He returned from the army with a baby girl and a wife who struggled with postpartum depression. He was a decorated Captain, in a tainted war. He was a loyal commander to a country, who didn’t even know his name.
For the next five decades, Ellis would go on to trust in his country to his own detriment. He would pledge himself to Corporate America again and again, layoff after layoff. He would try to maintain the image of success, even when society did not support his efforts. He would then go on to support a president who reminded him of his childhood, even if it required him to abandon his belief in kindness and tolerance. He clings to a dream that no longer serves him, stuck in a world of his own, even if it isolates him from those he loves.
EllisRipley is a loving man. He is a loved man. His family sees past the angry rhetoric, to the kindness and warmth in him. He is alone, scared, watching the world evolve and tell him that his childhood wasn’t as bright and happy as he remembers; that his country wasn’t unconditionally kind to him, that the promises he was told are hollow. Ellis Ripley is a man continuing to reach for a fake dream others abandoned long ago. He is a man full of resentment for having failed, for having never reached his pinnacle of success.
Today Ellis is stranded, alone, on his own little planet. He sits on his computer scrolling through sweepstakes and lotteries, hoping to one day win the success and reach the dream he was told belonged to him. Maybe he hopes to win a spaceship that will return him to his family, back to reality. A spaceship to take him home. Maybe he will forever stay lost in his world of dreams.
