This was one thing I agreed with my father about: independence. After spending my childhood in Synanon, I had no trust in any organization to take care of me, and that meant the government and the crooked corporations that Ray and Theresa spoke of, although, at that time, I still had no understanding of what a corporation was. In my mind, I saw corporations as massive cement buildings where the production of vague things were assembled and unleashed onto unsuspecting American citizens. Once, when I’d listened to Allison rant on and on about the promise made by General William Sherman in 1865 of “forty acres and a mule” to displaced freed slaves and how that promise had never been delivered, I’d snapped, “Don’t hold your breath.” She’d had a good laugh over my dry, sarcastic comment, but I was serious.
–Synanon Kid Grows Up by C.A. Wittman