by Diane Wilson
Follow Diane’s day-by-day account of the latest Global Hunger Strike against Formosa Plastics. You can join her by signing up here.
Saturday at Formosa is a quiet affair. Skeleton crew and a dozen white trucks. I’m sitting in front of Gate 3 that is the entrance to the new administration building where the bosses work their magic. The building is the color of old bread and is two stories high. Today 30 U.S. flags are flying high over their building. I put up 2 flags on my truck yesterday so naturally I’m wondering, “Is Formosa Plastics trying to outdo me?” My compadre who was sitting in the car behind me comes up and tells it was Veterans Day yesterday.
Awh, that question was not high on my list, anyhow. I’ve got a bigger one. Such as, what is going on with the deep ditch that was dug approximately the length of Formosa’s 2500-acre plant? My truck is about 75 feet from the pipeline that is big enough that I could climb through It. Is it a pipeline for crude oil for the oil men? A new water line from Lake Texana? A new water line from the proposed reservoir that the Lavaca Navidad River Authority is trying to permit? It’s called Enhancement. An unlikely word and definitely not Disney. Probably the only thing that the pipeline is enhancing is Formosa’s continual expansion.
It’s cold today and I’m wrapped in a blanket and have a shawl over my head. It’s not bad in the truck considering I’m sitting next to a window that is in a permanent situation of broke. Nothing works on that passenger door. Not the window and not the door handle. What can I say. It’s an old truck! But she runs! Nancy called me the other day and said some supporters wanted to fix the window and the side mirror on my truck. I laughed and laughed. Nooooo. Nooo. This truck is old and unfixable, but she is a beautiful red color, and she will run.
Talk about old. My old doctor showed up again this morning with his blood pressure sleeve and a stethoscope around his neck. After he tested, I asked him what it was and he said, “I’m not telling you.” Then he said to double my blood pressure medicine that he had prescribed.
“Why is it high, you think?”
And he said, “You are 75!” This is from my 92-year-old doctor who is a bundle of laughs.
But more correctly, my doctor is a great doctor. I do not know of a single doctor in the world who would go out in the cold and visit with a woman who has been sitting in the ditch for 12 days!
