As I understand it, it came from the military essentially dumping vietnam vets in the woods and letting the local communities figure out what to do with them. It’s been co-opted to some degree, especially by the larger chains, but most of the local businesses near me keep up the practice because the military traps the uneducated into contracts that pay far less than poverty wages. It’s is a way of maintaining some measure of goodwill between local communities and military bases, and it’s looking more and more likely that we’re going to need every scrap of good feeling we can get as this slow descent into fascism continues…