Recently, word leaked that Senator John Edwards would be announcing his candidacy for President in the 9th ward of New Orleans. There was much joy and rejoycing among those who support John Edwards. There were those who are either undecided or pulling for other candidates that thought New Orleans was a good choice for the announcement. Then, there were those who were....less enthusiastic.
This diary is simple, it describes why I "approve" of this venue choice.
My story is unremarkable, just another white, lower-middle class kid from a mining town in Pennsylvania, that's it above in the late 1800s. It looks about the same except all the industry is gone. My parents were pretty standard blue collar workers. My mom grew up in the little town of Benson, North Carolina, which is now at the cross-roads of I-40 and I-95, but at the time was a one-street farm town. In the fall, mom and her friends only went to school for half-days, then they spent the rest of the day picking cotton. She stopped on the side of the road one vacation and showed us how to do it; I pricked my finger pretty good and remember feeling sad for my old ma. My Dad grew up in the same town, Irvona. His Dad bought and sold horses and my dad worked every afternoon at his Uncle’s diary farm. That small family farm is one of the few still going in our area.
Mom went off to D.C. after high school and became one of the first keypunches at the CIA. My Dad went off to D.C. to find a job, and ended up in butcher’s school. I recently went to find the bar where they met, but the old Irish pub in downtown is now a high-rise building. Anyways, they met, they married, they had a boy (my brother), and then my Dad got drafted and went to Vietnam.
After the war my parents raised a family, going from one to three, while my Dad drove truck. But, the speed and speed ended up costing him his license and he went to work in the strip mines. Yep, when I grew up, coal was king.
He started out driving the oldest, beat up dozer in the company. But, he always gave his all and eventually became a foreman. I remember that in the early 80s my dad was making $33,000 a year as a coal-mine foreman. Then the mines closed. The next few years my Dad spent at part time jobs making about $5000 one year. One stretch of about 6 months there was no work and my dad went hunting...for food. We ate a lot of rice and casseroles in those days. I also remember some runny, watered-down spaghetti sauce. The moment I will never forget is standing in the grocery line with my mom as she bought generic groceries. Did y’all have those? They were big white packages with black letters saying things like "Chips" on them. I remember somehow having the intuition that she was embarrassed, then looking around and realizing no one else was buying that "cheap" stuff and we were getting some stares. I’ll never forget how embarrassed my mom looked. My mom went to work part time to make ends meet. Eventually my Dad ended up getting a pretty good job, which he still has, and at which he finally makes as much as he did as a foreman in the 80s.
But, things were never the same. The vacations we took when I was really young, that I only know through pictures, they stopped. Christmas became a subdued affair. We quit buying heating oil and heated our house with wood that we spent the summer cutting and chopping, and as David Allen Coe would say, "If that ain’t country, I’ll kiss your ass." Now, that also ain’t poor. But, you can see poor from across the street. Actually, the family across the street had a feud with the Ball boys and all the men in the two families ended up killing each other. But, I digress.
I won’t compare my standard of living to those who are the most in need here in the United States, or throughout the world; I’ll just say that I understand a little of what they feel. I feel enough that I understand why a populist campaign would choose New Orleans to kick off their campaign.
The campaign is about giving people a hand up, not a hand out.
"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime"—Author unknown
Never has the difference between Democrats and Republicans been so clear to me as when I watched Reagan Republicans decry welfare moms who just wanted hand outs, while my own family struggled to make ends meet. That philosophy has taken over our country, to the point where very few can imagine a national program to raise up the poor like the New Deal. Katrina should have awoken us from that slumber and set us on a course to give every American a chance at success, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, regardless of how much wealth their parents have or do not have, regardless of their race, religion, or nationality.
But, we have forgotten.
That is why we need to go back to New Orleans. To remind people of how bad things were, to show them how bad they still are, and to give them a vision for how good they can be. A vision we’ve forgotten. A vision of a country where everyone can share in the American Dream, to make the world a better place for the next generation.