My father died a week ago. He died quietly, in his sleep, in the home he built, with his family at his side. Just as he wanted.
But it is not his death I write about. It is his life. A life made infinitely better by progressives, Democrats, and the United Auto Workers.
My Father was an American working man, a carpenter to be exact. A skilled tradesman. From a time and place when that meant something. When it was a badge of honor. When we actually made shit in this country. Created things, real things, not creatively packaged financial time bombs.
He was proud of that.
That life began on December 31, 1929, on a farm in southeast Michigan, as the country slid into the abyss of the Great Depression. And before the New Deal not only saved the country from that abyss, but laid the foundation for working class Americans to build a life on. A life beyond their wildest dreams in that cold winter of 1929.
My Father's life was intertwined with progressivism and the auto industry. And the Democratic Party. All of them benefited.
After the farm was lost, his family led a semi-nomadic existence. Moving between the Detroit area and Up North, usually a small town named Onaway. They lived in Farmington during part of World War II. He watched tanks and other armored vehicles rumble out Grand River from the great war plants, headed to the GM Proving Grounds. One of those drivers later became his father-in-law.
He dropped out of school to go to work as a carpenter like many others in his family. He did a short stint in the Army. He was part of the great building boom in postwar Detroit, where the population swelled to nearly two million in the mid-Fifties.
This was the golden age of Detroit and the American auto industry. And the fruits of the labors of progressives and Democrats paid off. Credit unions and insured savings accounts gave him and my mother financial services and the chance to build a nest egg.
He married my mother, bringing together his rural, Protestant, American, conservative family with an urban, Catholic, German immigrant, and much more fun loving family. Not always a fun time at family events.
My sister was born in 1956, me in 1957. 1957, nobody knew it at the time, but it was the end of the beginning for Detroit and the car business.
Unemployment compensation saved us when it hit the fan in the recession of 1958, would save us again many times. My Father was out of work for months. My sister and I were still in diapers. Another sister was on the way. Tough times. But we had a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food in our bellies. Unlike 1929, the government was there for my Father.
But the real savior was a new job. Not just a job. A GM job. In June 1959, now with three kids, he hired on at the Fisher Body plant at Willow Run. People still called the Willow Run complex "the bomber plant". It was where Ford built thousands of Army bombers during the war, when Detroit was the Arsenal of Democracy. GM used it to build the Corvair. 'Nuff said.
That job meant job security (we thought) and benefits. Healthcare. Pension. Supplemental unemployment benefits, creating as close to a guaranteed annual income as you could get. Cost of living kept pay current with inflation.
My Father became a United Autoworker. The Union, and the revered Reuther Brothers, made my Father and thousands of others middle class. Decades of union struggles paid off. For a short time.
But the storm clouds were building. Annual model changes to rearrange the chrome meant an annual layoff. No big deal, but still. The Corvair wasn't selling well, and came under attack - rightly- from Ralph Nader.
My Father transferred to the General Motors Building on Grand Boulevard in Detroit's New Center. Across the street was the Golden Tower of The Fisher Building. The 14th Floor was the executive floor, from which the world's largest corporation was ruled. GM had a market share over 50%. That floor was the epicenter of the world economy.
Life was good.
Summer weekends were spent at some relative's house. The men in the yard, the great Ernie Harwell doing the Tiger game on the radio. The women working the kitchen.
My Father was no sexist, though. Work was work. He changed diapers. Gave bottles. Did dishes, washed clothes, cooked. Whatever needed to be done raising six kids. And he sat through more recitals, concerts, plays, games than any human should. He was there for everything. Proud and happy.
Family and work were his life.
And there was always work. When not working on our house, we worked on other people's. Side jobs. In cash. My brothers and I learned carpentry, they better than I did.
There was always sports. I can still remember the annual Tiger game, at old Tiger Stadium. Between he and my grandfather I learned decades of Tiger history. The Wings and Lions? Well, they peaked in 1957, too. The Wings for a few decades, the Lions remain the Lions. Maybe this year.
Public education gave my siblings and me the chance my Father never had. College. The great state universities of the Big Ten states, the heartland of progressivism, gave thousands of kids just like us the same chance.
For me it was Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. Two brothers did Michigan Tech somewhere up near the Arctic. North of Up North. Another brother commuted to a private college. Older sister chose work. It was having choices that mattered. He never had them, we did.
Choice was an issue with my younger sister, too. She came home after her sophomore year pregnant. The father a smug smart ass rich kid. He demanded she abort. She thought about it. She and I talked about it. She chose to have the baby. We talked with my parents, expecting the shit to hit the fan.
I didn't. My parents rose to the occasion. Prenatal care was arranged. Old baby clothes and stuff emerged from hiding. My Father met with boyfriend's parents. Smug rich boy had smug rich parents. "Typical" was the politest phrase he had for them. Typical be because they simply wrote a check to make problem go away.
That baby was the first of nine treasured, adored, and spoiled grandchildren. She and her mom lived with my parents as they got their life together. That baby, my niece, was there when he came home from the hospital for the last time. A married mother of three, and a nursing student, she helped care for him the last two days. So did another granddaughter. So did we all.
Choices. Doing what is right. Taking care of family. Getting the work done.
That job security held true. Though the good times were clearly behind Detroit. The riot in '67 did major damage to the city, and liberal/progressive politics. Racial lines cracked the foundation.
But not as much as the job losses. Layoffs became longer and more frequent. The downturn spread as inexorably and stubbornly as the cancer that would later kill him. The cycle of rebates and other sales promotions couldn't overcome crappy cars. Minivans and SUV's temporarily slowed the decline, for awhile. But the endless cycle of union givebacks, corporate cost cutting, a government help continued, still continues.
My Father retired when his thirty years was up.
My sister, the one with the baby, met a guy who became her life partner, father to my niece,and her business partner. They built a nice little business, owning eventually five dealerships. All American cars. The flagship store, sitting proudly on US 23 at Owen Road in Fenton, was a Pontiac store. Needless to say that business is not going well.
But the union had won enough, and kept enough, to give my parents a great retirement. They travelled the globe, to places they could only have dreamed of in the Depression.
My siblings and I married and brought them grandkids. Each as adored and loved as the others. They, in turn, have begun marrying and bringing in great grandchildren.
My Father built himself a new home for their retirement. Included was a workshop, one that always had room for one more tool. He helped my sister build and maintain her dealerships. Every house his kids have owned he has done some work on.
Each of us has had "call Dad" moments as we struggled to do those things he made look so easy. And, carpentry isn't genetic. His daughters-in-law learned to pre-empt the process and "call Dad" first. Saved time, trips to the hardware store, and lots of aggravation.
He, ever the learner, continued to hone his craft. He became a woodworker. Things emerged from his workshop. Last Christmas every woman in the family got a handmade jewelry box. My daughters still have the doll furniture he made them. My coffee cup's sitting on an end table he made. Just puttering in his shop.
Then came the cancer. That GM healthcare and Medicare were there. As the progressives and the union had planned and worked for.
He was a proud Michigan autoworker. Proud to work at GM and proud to be Union. Day's work for a day's pay.
When we drove him, or the ambulance drove him, to radiation the drive included the UAW freeway. Down the street were the old plants, the ones that built Chevies and Buicks. The ambulance was Union, UAW, that brought him home the final trip. To home hospice care.
Some of those plants are closed. The roads need work. Thousands of people need work. The great factory towns like Lansing, Flint, Pontiac, Detroit, etc. lay in ruins. Whole neighborhoods - including my grandparents' - sit abandoned. I left many years ago, moving to Boston.
But, my Father's life shows what dedicated, creative, competent government can do. Government in the hands of progressives, and with the resources to do good things. And it also showed what working people can do for themselves, when government levels the playing fields. Unions, credit and labor we're vital. Still are.
Public institutions. Great public universities that not only educate, but have a mission to better life for all the people of their state. Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois. Big Ten schools, Big Ten states. Progressive states in the day. That is not a coincidence.
One of the last things I did with my Father was hold his hand and watch the Michigan game. Just as he held mine walking into Tiger Stadium many years ago.
I drove home yesterday on Interstate highways, taking the shortcut across Canada. The highways that opened the country to anyone with a car. Cars made in Detroit. Most of the cars yesterday weren't made in Detroit. But they were made by working people, just like my Father.
My Father's life shows why this new fight is important. So our kids can have choices. Can have economic security.
This is a fight worth fighting. Worth winning. This is a fight we have to win. Thousands, millions, of us have better lives because of progressive principles, ideals, values, institutions, laws, and organizations.
So I say to my fellow Progressives, Keep Fighting! Wisconsin and Ohio (this Saturday excepted, sorry), Keep Fighting! We are the Leaders And Best.
To the Occupiers. Keep Fighting!
To The President and my fellow Democrats I say this. Get off your fucking asses and start fighting.
To my Dad I say thanks. I love you. It was a wonderful life.
Update and Thanks
Thanks for all the kind words and condolences.
And an apology to veterans and the VA. I did a complete brain fade and left out his funeral. A military funeral.
My Father did his two year draftee hitch as a medic stationed at Dugway Proving Grounds, the Army's biowarfare facility, during the Korean War. This made him a vet and eligible for the benefit of burial in a veterans cemetery.
He was buried on a sunny, but very windy day, at the new Great Lakes National Cemetery outside Holly. A beautiful place. Built around a couple of lakes in the middle of the flat Michigan farmland he was born on.
Unfortunately it is also a busy place these days. The funerals roll through like Chevy's on the line.
He was given military honors, with Michigan National Guard members performing the flag folding ceremony and presentation. There is nothing so moving as that ceremony.
The rifle team for the 21 gun salute didn't make it. First Friday of hunting season in Michigan anyone with a gun was headed for the woods looking for deer. My Father, a hunter before he met my Mother, would not have objected. We didn't.
So, thanks to all. And Happy Thanksgiving.