Word: patches
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Despite five years of expansion by the U.S. economy as a whole, many banks and savings and loan associations are racked by troubles in the farm belt, depressed conditions in the oil patch and unwise real estate ventures all over the country. While the large majority are solidly in the black, the weakest institutions are in such bad shape that they threaten to exhaust the multibillion-dollar Government insurance funds that protect depositors. If that happens, taxpayers will have to come to the rescue. Federal regulators are confident they can clean up the mess before it overwhelms the financial system...
Leonard's parents live in the other half of the one-story, pale blue home, which they bought when Leonard was eight. The house stands in a neat row of similar dwellings, each with a small square-columned portico and patch of front yard. After a 1960 federal order desegregated William Frantz Public School, which Bianca now attends, the neighborhood changed from all white to nearly all black. Today only 26 of New Orleans' 126 public schools are racially integrated. Bianca's school is virtually all black. When told about the bitter struggles to integrate Frantz, Bianca says, "That...
...relentless raider who could outwit all those corporate bigwigs back East. Lately, though, Pickens' lone star seems to have fallen. His efforts to take over Homestake Mining, a leading gold producer, and KN Energy, a natural-gas company, have fizzled. Because of the continuing slump in the oil patch, profits at his Mesa Limited Partnership have dropped from $70.6 million in 1986 to $31.9 million in 1987, a performance so poor that Pickens has had to borrow money to pay dividends...
After a restless night in a patch of salt cedar scrub near the westbound line, home and family beckon. The three grimy hobo-hobbyists trek to the old Yuma prison for some middle-class sightseeing. Well-groomed tourists stare uncomfortably. Afterward, westbound freights are said to brake for a curve and easy boarding just past the Colorado River. Eight hours later, when the tourists are having dinner, the hobo-hobbyists are still waiting for a slow freight...
...cutting hay in a narrow field. "Without last year's leftover it wouldn't be worth it," Malard said. "I was hoping to get some weeds, so I might have something to cut out of my fields. But not even the weeds came." He points at a patch of his land. "I couldn't even get the plow in that ground, it was baked so hard. The plow just rode...