Spoke to Mom on Wednesday as usual. She’s 85 and lives in senior housing in Springfield, Mass. We usually talk politics, and since she gets her news from CSPAN and MSNBC our conversations are largely in synch, which is really how we like to have it with parents no matter how much fun we may have arguing with the rest of the world (though politics are really beside the point, knowing as I do that others in my generation are struggling for the most basic communication with their elderly parents).
My mother is not unnaturally inclined to argumentation, though she has never shrunk from one. In my pre-teen days we first moved out of an apartment and into a house of our own. It was a mostly happy upgrade for all, but my mom was dismayed to find that most of the walk to our new school would be on an unpaved roadside. So, shortly after we moved in, she tried to rally the neighbor ladies who had come to welcome her into the neighborhood with invitations to morning coffee and evenings of cigarettes and card-playing. Her call to arms for a little band of sisters to fight for a sidewalk for the safety of their children was met by the argument, “You can’t fight city hall.” That was the first time I heard that expression. It was also the first time I heard my mom say, “Yes, I can.”
Within a year she had embarrassed her neighbor friends into signing the petition she had taken from door to door. She presented it to the town council, argued her case before a public hearing, and won the vote for the sidewalk.
A year later, she was back at it. I have few bad memories of childhood, but high on that short list are the hours I spent digging out the backyard septic tank. Whatever was the cause of the tank’s chronic problem, it motivated my mom to launch a campaign to get sewers put in. Once again, she met immediate resistance from those closest to her in the neighborhood, but this time they didn’t use the “you-can’t-fight-city-hall” argument because they knew she could. And that’s what bothered them. If we get sewers put in, they warned her, our taxes will go up. She was undaunted, using the same tactics she’d used earlier—getting petitions signed and taking it directly to the town council. A year later there was a sewer line running alongside the sidewalk.
My mother’s activist history came back to me during our most recent call when she told me that the newly completed expansion of the trade school adjoining her residence had eliminated access to the school for her and her neighboring seniors. No little matter since the school was outfitted with a wide range of training facilities for its students, providing services from hair salon to dentistry at very friendly fixed-income prices. In less time than it would take her to march down to the nearest street corner and shout, “Don’t tread on me!” she was on the phone to the mayor and her congressman to find out what could be done to provide universal access. Some good public servant along the line suggested she write a letter and told her where to send it. She did so, and last week she received an answer to her letter—a wheelchair/walker accessible sidewalk would be installed in two weeks. (Yes, I know it’s Massachusetts, which may end up being the last enlightened place in America...if Vermont doesn’t get there first.)
Two sidewalks and a sewer line…not exactly Erin Brockovich level heroism, but not bad for an ordinary mom. I cannot express enough how proud I am of her and how valuable it was to grow up in an atmosphere where both parents eagerly assumed the rights and responsibilities that go with living in a democracy. They always kept themselves informed of the issues, they frequently and openly discussed them with family and friends, and they worked every election—driving voters to the polls or signing them in at the polling place. At 85, my mom still wouldn’t miss working an election.
About a year ago I received one of those pleas that are commonplace in our hyper connected cyber world. A friend wanted me to sign an online petition condemning Barack Obama for allowing the return of horsemeat for American consumption. As always when I get these things, I take them seriously, even when they’re laughable—which this one was not, but it was confounding. It was hard for me to believe that with all the trouble Obama had on his hands that he would want to be stirring up the wrath of animal lovers. So I turned to Snopes as I often do when something comes through the intertubes and starts to stink up my computer. And indeed, Obama had signed a bill stripping away a long-standing US ban on slaughtering horses for human consumption. But as always in law and politics, nothing is as simple as it seems. The amendment to ban the practice was stripped out of a huge spending bill, a legislative maneuver employed whenever some cowardly or conniving member of Congress wants to slip something by the voters. You attach your pet (read: purchased) cause to a much larger and complex bill that has already consumed enormous amounts of time and energy to assemble and you dare anyone to undo it to stop you…even the President. So my friend had the facts only as straight as time and patience with the political system allows. When I tried to point out to her that Obama was merely signing an omnibus-spending bill that dealt with horse slaughter in the most tangential way, she wouldn’t hear of it. “This happened on Obama’s watch!” was her reply.
I understood the frustration in that reply, but was dismayed nonetheless. If the goal was to vent against Obama…well, mission accomplished as they say. But if the goal is to get something done...if you really want to save horses and stop the US from engaging in human consumption of horsemeat, you get the name of the Congressional representative responsible for stripping the ban out of the bill and go after his or her little local ass (save your President hunting for the big stuff—joblessness, homelessness, war on civilians, human torture). Rally your animal-loving friends to your cause. Circulate petitions and letters. Make the hard-won democractic process work for you.
Most importantly, let your kids watch you…give them a lesson in democracy they may never get at school. Send them off into the world fired up with the notion that they can fight city hall. You can’t give your children a more valuable gift. Trust me. I know.