Our family moved from a rural area to "the big city" in 1954 where I lived until graduation from high school in 1964. For most of those ten years my mom's job was to manage our home and do what she could to keep three offspring in line. In the later years she did work part time at a nearby animal shelter. Not for the money, but because she loves critters.
My dad made the most of his eighth grade education. He had learned how to learn and used that ability to become a skilled machinist after spending a number of years mastering auto mechanics. He also told tales of an early life riding freight trains to the Pacific Northwest to pick fruit and time spent building roads in parks while on a Works Progress Administration (WPA) crew.
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| Illustration by Boris Artzybasheff |
Just over a year after arriving we moved from a rental house into a new house in what was then a working class neighborhood on the outskirts of town. The 1,100 sq. ft. house cost $10,000 which would be roughly $80,000 in 2010 dollars. Allowing for it's size, that's comparable to a 1,500 sq. ft. starter home today that might sell for $110,000. In 1957 the family car was upgraded from a well worn early 50's Plymouth to a brand new Pontiac. By 1960 the Pontiac was paid off.
Most summers we loaded into that Pontiac for a family vacation. One year we went east and visited New York City and the Jersey Shore. Another year it was west to visit family and friends in the Los Angeles area where my mom was born. There were stops at the Grand Canyon and various other attractions along the way. One year my grandma, who lived in a smaller town about fifty miles from our new home, joined us for a big loop that included Las Vegas, San Francisco and Yellowstone Park. My dad liked gadgets, so that trip was documented on 8mm movie film (now preserved on DVD).
Another summer tradition was a two or three week stay at grandma's house. My grandfather had passed away when I was a baby and grandma never remarried. She lived in a little house a few blocks from Safeway and not much farther from the building where she had worked many years for a big oil company. She had done night work, cleaning offices, until she neared retirement and moved to the position of elevator operator. Everyone in the building got to know her, and she retired with a decent pension to supplement a tiny social security check and some money she'd set aside at the bank.
Those summer visits bring back the best of memories as we played tag, collected locust shells and drew pictures on the back sides of an endless supply of paper salvaged from waste baskets over the years. Grandma never owned a car and walked everywhere, with the three of us in tow during our visits. The bank tellers knew her by name and any excursion downtown was sure to include a number of cheerful exchanges as we crossed paths with friends, neighbors and workmates.
In summary, our family of five lived a comfortable if common lifestyle on my father's pay as a skilled laborer. My grandmother was respected at a big company where employees, even janitors, were treated fairly and made to feel important.
That's all gone now. If I hadn't seen and lived it myself, I'd call it a pipe dream. Where did it go? What has changed to make it impossible today? Being a slow learner, it wasn't until late 2008 that the first clues started coming together. I was in the fortunate position of having time on my hands which allowed me to do some digging with regard to the ongoing financial crisis.
My digging soon uncovered greed that riled my sensibilities to the point that I made a video and submitted it as a CNN iReport. That explains the CNN references and my lame attempt to imitate their house curmudgeon Jack Cafferty. The title is what at the time I thought was a clever way to get attention. It has survived on YouTube and you can watch it here.
Three years later I stand behind the facts reported. When I made that video Obama had just been elected and I naively thought that the media would jump on the story and that our new president would see to it that the greedy bastards ended up broke and in prison. I was wrong on all counts.
A comment left by a viewer suggests why my plea for Cassano's incarceration fell on deaf ears.
"If Cassano wasn't in bed with half the politicos in Washington, that might be possible. If the politicians had to disclose how they helped create the problem we would need to build a big prison on Pennsylvania Ave.;-)"After a bit more research it became painfully obvious that our government has been bought off and is controlled by the greedy looters behind the financial collapse. Non-partisan evidence goes back twenty years to include Clinton/Rubin, Bush/Paulson and Obama/Geithner. At that point I gave up, conceding that there was nothing one old man living in Mexico could do that would make a difference.
Fast forward to a month and ten days ago. A movement calling itself Occupy Wall Street set up camp in Zuccatti Park in lower Manhattan. A few days later a friend on facebook mentioned it and noted that there was every indication that a media blackout of the event had been ordered. Being Mr. Curious I started looking for information and found that even the Internet didn't offer up much. The Guardian, a British newspaper, posted the best coverage.
I quickly learned that the explosion of greed back in 2008 was at the core of the protest. They wanted heads to roll and were calling for an end to government control by the looters. My kind of people. As good fortune (karma?) would have it, one week after they set up camp an overzealous cop sprayed a group of young women with pepper spray creating a story that could not be suppressed. You know the rest... or you should if you care about a decent future for your offspring.
That's why I'm doing this. I'm not what you would call a patriot; after all I skipped out to live my golden years in Mexico. None the less, I do care for our country and now that I know who stole the life I enjoyed growing up, I want it returned. I want today's babies and tomorrow's babies to enjoy the level playing field that made it possible for someone to work forty hours a week and support a family. In the next episode we'll dig into just what needs to change to make that possible again. Hint: follow the money.
--- Que le vaya bien... Steve
