I am angry this morning, and I am frustrated. I am tired. I have been so tired for the last ten years and I’d like to tell you why. I am tired because I have spent the last 10 years of my life with chronic pain. I have spent it with severe fatigue. I have spent it in the throes of dire poverty. Yet every day I get up and I fight. I fight, because like millions of Americans I don’t have a choice. I have children that need fed, I have rent that needs paid, I have to keep fighting. So when I woke up November 9, 2016 and saw a battle that needed fought, I did what I’ve always done, I signed up to fight. I threw my hat into the ring for a State Delegate seat against a Republican that had just been granted the speakership in our House of Delegates, despite the fact that he hasn’t had an opponent in 22 years. Then I learned how to get angry and why no one had run against him in so long. I am angry because I have heard so many Americans say that they want an “everyman” in politics. I am angry because political funds and endorsements are based on “early money” and for us everymen and women early money is not a reality.
I ate a lot of squirrel potpie as a child. No, that’s not an obscure metaphor. We simply couldn’t afford meat many days and instead my father hunted. Squirrel was easy and the license was cheap, so we ate squirrel. My parents worked harder than nearly anyone I knew, but they had seven children, no formal education beyond high school, and when they had a little extra they used it to help those that had less. They even took in their younger siblings when both of their mothers died young. In my parents’ house no matter how little food was on the table, you had a seat and a share in it.
When I was 20 I joined the Air Force, where I learned a mechanical trade. I did not have a commission; I joined to get my education, not because I had one. I worked the hours of a flight line mechanic, raised my daughter alone, and at my table there was always a seat for young Airmen who missed home cooked meals. No matter how little we had, my daughter and I shared in wine, food and laughter with those who had less than us, because that is what I was taught.
After the military, I left to get my education, and working 3 jobs for minimum wage, while serving in the US Air Force Reserve, I went to school full time. Everyday I awoke sore and tired at 4 am to go train clients as a personal trainer, work on displays and stock inventories at Sears, and go to class. Every night I lay down at 2 am after waiting tables at Denny’s, each paycheck being spent in its entirety on necessities, with nothing being left for savings. Approximately, 15 days a month I also found work at the local Air Reserve base, making more in each hour at the base than I did at entire shifts at my other three jobs, but it was still never enough. Still when someone needed a place to stay, a few bucks to get by, a meal, they received it at my home.
I eventually got enough of my education to get a job as a Law Enforcement Park Ranger. My daughter and I risked a lot to move to Virginia, away from our family, and serve for a salary that barely paid the rent. I woke up everyday in a climate that I found myself intolerant of and put on a bulletproof vest, to be spit on and insulted by people who didn’t appreciate my accent or my authority. The doctors that monitor my health at the VA found a cancerous mole on my knee and removed it. It took 15 stitches to repair the hole they left digging out the bad cells. My boss called the next day and said that my sick leave I had applied for 3 weeks in advance, had left the park without a Ranger because one Ranger had woken up sick and the others would require overtime pay to be called in, which the park would not approve. I went in and worked a 12 hour day, which included a foot chase, with 15 stitches in my knee. I went back to the ER that night to have my stitches repaired, then made dinner for the local first responders on duty, because that day was Thanksgiving.
My body is covered with scars; my spine has damage that cannot be repaired because of a combination of hard use and an endocrine disorder, brought on by my military service. My hands have callouses and I wear work boots without irony. You still have a place at my table.
You want a revolution, my friends? Support true grass roots. Stop donating to the party or PACs that choose to support the candidate with the most early money and instead donate to campaigns about true economic justice, because they are people that have lived their whole life failing to see it. People who know the Medicaid gap because they have spent years in it. People who support Veterans because they have spent too many nights on the phone with one contemplating suicide, not because it’s politically expedient. Find a campaign in Appalachia, the rust belt, or deep red country, run by an individual that makes less than 50K a year. I promise you they are out there. Click the link below to contribute to mine, or find one yourself, but please if you want a party the represents the majority of Americans, contribute to a representative that represents the average American, tired, sore, dirty, and angry, give them a seat at our table, because they’ve earned it.
https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/sponsler4va