Driving down Lexington Road one morning, I saw a man and a woman changing the letters on a church sign. I talked to Michael Pipkin, who was spelling out a website address on the marquee. Michael was volunteering that morning, but what he does most mornings is scour the city for a job doing manual labor.
Flagpole: Do you go to church here?
Michael Pipkin: Yeah. Not every Sunday, but pretty consistently.
FP: What brings you here?
MP: Because it’s a positive environment. And learning, I like learning different cultures and different religions and stuff like that. And the people are nice; they’re not all snobby and stuck up and stuff like that… We come up every so often and help with the church work or whatever, and [my wife] works in the nursery.
FP: Where do you work?
MP: I’m unemployed right now. I’m looking for some hard labor, but no one’s hiring. Every time I call somebody they tell me they have a full crew or they can’t afford to hire a new person, so I’m just keepin’ on lookin’.
FP: What have you done before?
MP: I did tree work for about five years. I would just cut rounds and feed the wood chipper… I did roofing: nailing shingles and scraping roofs.
FP: And how long have you lived in Athens?
MP: Three years.
FP: Where did you live before?
MP: I’m from all over. My dad was in the military. I moved here from St. Matthews, South Carolina, about 30 minutes from Colombia.
FP: How many different places did you live?
MP: Texas, Arizona, New Jersey, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina and here.
FP: So, you went to a bunch of different schools growing up?
MP: Yeah. I didn’t like it because I never got a chance to know anybody. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up with the same people my whole life.
FP: Other than that, did you like being able to see so much of the country? What was your favorite spot?
MP: Probably Arizona. Where we lived was, like, a city, and surrounding the city was a bunch of mountains, so I thought that was pretty cool.
FP: So, what made you decide to move to Athens?
MP: I thought I could find work. I lived in Watkinsville when I went to middle school and I already have some contacts here, so I thought it would be easier for me to find work. It’s not.
FP: What have you been trying to do to find work?
MP: Calling people and talking to people at gas stations. If I see any work trucks I ask them. That’s pretty much it. Just calling around in the phone book. Anyone that I think looks like someone who could have a job for me, I ask them about it, but I haven’t found any luck yet. They tell me there’s not enough work.
FP: And you’ve been at it for the whole time you’ve been here?
MP: Yeah. I found some little part-time jobs here and there, temporary work, but nothing permanent. And not having a car hurts me, too. I have had some temporary jobs where people told me that if I had a car, they would put me on full-time… I worked a couple days with a tree service from Watkinsville, but he couldn’t hire me because he can’t drive from Oconee County to Lexington Road to pick me up.
FP: What else do you do besides the job search or volunteering here?
MP: Work out, play guitar, spend time with my wife, go on walks.
FP: You play guitar? Electric or acoustic?
MP: Electric. I like to play heavy metal.
FP: Have you ever performed anywhere?
MP: Yeah. When I lived in South Carolina, I worked at a club called Ground Zero in Spartanburg, and I was in a band called Screaming to Exist. And we played pretty constantly, around the state.
FP: Around the state? So, you traveled?
MP: We traveled a little bit, not a whole lot, but we had our fair share of traveling, yeah.
FP: Have you ever thought about trying to do anything here in Athens?
MP: I’d love to, but I can’t meet anybody because it’s hard to get around. And I can’t go anywhere at night because the buses stop running at, like, 7:45. So, unless I met somebody and started a band with them, I couldn’t get home… The car thing is really holding me down right now.
FP: You said you like walking. Where do you go for walks?
MP: Around my complex or up and down the road. Lately, I’ve been getting in some jogging; I’m trying to get more into that.
FP: Do you go for walks mostly for the exercise, or is there any…
MP: To clear my mind. To clear my mind, because I’m trying to quit smoking cigarettes, and exercise has helped me a lot with that. [His wife chimes in: “To get more in shape for his martial arts.”]
FP: Oh, you do martial arts! I just interviewed someone who was a Tae Kwon Do instructor. What type of martial arts do you do?
MP: Hapkido. It’s a Korean form of martial arts, mixed martial arts—it’s got a little bit of everything.
FP: What do you like about martial arts?
MP: I like it because it’s real aggressive and physical. It gives me an outlet to let go of some of my anger and depression about, you know, my situation. Not that my situation—I don’t feel like I’m in the worst situation there is to be in, but [my wife] only works one day a week; that’s all they give her. And I’m not able to give her the things that I want to give her, that I would like to give her. As a man, I feel like I need to be working, and I want to work, it’s just people either aren’t hiring or people that will hire me say they can’t because I don’t have a car. I’m either gonna have to find someone who’s willing to pick me up every morning and just pay me a little less than what they would pay me, or save up money and get a car.
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