Chapter Four: Jobs of My Youth

I recently broached the topic of past jobs with a few of my friends. The point of the conversations was my opinion that when I was a young adult there were a multitude of places to be hired without any previous experience. And not just in retail or fast food, but with small manufacturing businesses, especially wholesale companies where the customers were sellers of the product.

The other motivation for me to think about my past jobs, is the ever in process "based on a true story" novel that I started in the past year and a half, hence the "Chapter Four" in the title of this post.

As of now, I have remembered a number of places of employment, although I am not certain they are listed in the exact chronological order.

Of course, my first job was with my father delivering knives to the restaurants, delis, grocery stores (yes, we called them grocery stores then), and various other places where knives were required as part of the daily activity, as detailed in the chapter, Working With Dad. From there, I worked at the following jobs.

My first experience for work in which my boss was not a relative was at a restaurant called Bonanza. I started out washing dishes, the standard point of entry for this particular place. Over time, I moved out of the backroom to the front line, preparing the sides, fries and bake potatoes specifically, then eventually to head cook, where the steaks and burgers were grilled.

We had a very tight crew back then, especially that first year. All of us from a few different high schools, but similar in age and background. We often stayed after closing, as a group, to roll silverware into napkins and eat any leftover food from the night's work. My recollection is that we were very busy, long lines on Friday and Saturday nights, and it was rumored that our store was one of the biggest revenue stores in the chain. 

Our boss was an older guy (in his late 20's!) who actively encouraged a sense of team work, although sometimes those events included him buying the beer for those after work get togethers. Sadly, Norm put his hand in a fryer one night and was replaced with a corporate trained manager. Not a bad guy, but someone who did not believe in our after hours sessions. His enforcement of the rules broke down our sense of camaraderie to the degree that when the seniors left that first year, some of the team work went with them.

It would be my first experience with the corporate mentality and  subsequent encounters did not change my perspective.

My next job was at McDonalds. It was here that I met the lifelong friends that I have mentioned in previous posts. My Big Chill group. While McDonalds is clearly a corporation, at the time, Ray Croc was still growing his company, seeking out (mostly) young entrepreneurs to own and operate the stores with a mixture of McDonaldness and their own individuality. In our case, the owner had a string of stores in the area, and he too, like Norm encouraged us to work as a team. 

We had a softball league which he paid for so we could also interact with the young people from other neighborhood stores. He also threw yearly picnics where we ate Big Macs and Quarter Pounders at a local park. And he promoted within; many line workers became assistant and general managers. So, even though our wages were low, there was more to going to work than the pay. It is an attitude that I did experience at times, in future places of employment, but not all of them. Perhaps it was just the exuberance of youth, but we worked hard and played hard, and I genuinely enjoyed my time there, even though I worked the 6 AM to 2 PM shift for most of my six month "career". 

I am a bit fuzzy on the order of the next few jobs, although I know they occurred in the late 70's, early 80's. I still lived at home for some, so money was used exclusively for having a good time. 

One that I only recalled recently, after creating my initial list of youth jobs, was at a department store called Korvettes. It was initially a holiday season opportunity, although it did last past Christmas into the new year. My strongest memory is that soon after being hired, they began to play Christmas music for all the shoppers to hear. It was Elvis Presley's Christmas Album. Now, I was not a big Elvis fan to start with, but after hearing that 45 minute album, six, seven times a day for two months, I was destined to never reconsider my non-fan status. 

Another of those early jobs was working at a place that manufactured gang mowers. If you are not familiar with a gang mower, the idea was to provide a single tractor with a series of reels that could be attached to the rear of the tractor thereby enabling a large swath of grass to be cut at once. My one clear memory of this job is that once a week we needed to create the individual reels by bending steel bars. This entailed heating the steel bars in a large oven, removing them with a tong and gloves, then placing them in a machine that bent the pliable steel into its reel shape. A dip in a vat of water cooled the steel so that it could be moved to the assembly step. 

I often volunteered for this duty, partly because it was better then my usual boring task, but also because it paid $1 an hour extra and all the salt pills you could eat. It was a small niche company providing a very specific product to a small customer base, but a number of people worked there, young people like myself with no responsibilities, but also a few who supported their families. It was a common theme of employers back then, small businesses run by adults who made a decent living while also providing work experience and opportunity for the young people of the neighborhood. 

Again, to return to my original point, a dynamic that I think is lacking in America today, to the detriment of young people seeking entry level employment but also to our society as a whole.

I also worked for a company that made jewelry. It was in a nondescript building without even a sign advertising the name of the place to the outside world. I remember that I initially struggled to figure out where it was located, for that lack of a sign. It was only the address in big, bold numbers on the building facade that convinced me to enter, in answer to their help wanted advertisement.

Back then, jobs were often found in the help wanted ads in the newspapers. While it may have helped to know someone already working there, as I will discuss in reference to another of my youth jobs, it wasn't disqualifying if you walked in off the street, as I did for both restaurant jobs, and the gang mower place.

At the jewelry place, I mostly worked with people that were older than I, quite unlike the restaurant experiences. Young mothers enhancing their household income, married people making a career out of this job, serious people who worked for more than just the money to enable the next party. Still, we were part of a softball league, although perhaps league is too strong a word as I don't recall any real structure to it other than we played against teams from other local small businesses. 

We were not very good, not having many young men working there, so I was one of the better players, batted fourth, played shortstop. But we had a blast and actually won a game or two. At the time I didn't realize it but I learned how to play on a sports team with people who just weren't very good but were looking for some outdoor fun. Oddly, one of the teams we did manage to beat was a group from a local wicker factory, mostly young guys, who did not think much of us or our abilities but were quite shocked when we were victorious. A great example of the team with the best talent losing to the team that played best together. 

Speaking of wicker, I eventually worked for that very employer. A few of the guys recognized me from the softball games, but by then that "league" was no longer. The factory was at the end of a long driveway with a huge grass field in front, and we spent many a lunch break playing touch football in that field. 

In reality, using the word factory to describe this company is a bit of an exaggeration as we mostly imported the wicker furniture, only manufacturing the glass tops for the tables.

I was in the shipping department, my first, but not last job in this capacity. This was before the days of computer inventories, so when an order was received, we roamed the aisles to pick the product. The manager of the department was Walt, a Vietnam Vet who had some lingering issues from his experience there. For the most part, he knew where everything was stored, and was most willing to impart his knowledge. 

Being me, of course, I was flabbergasted as to why there was no formal inventory system, and began a paper version, at first noting the SKUs and aisle placements of the fast moving furniture, then crawling into the upper bays and dust laden areas where we hardly ventured. As it turned out, there was inventory there unknown to the front office, and over time we were able to either sell it at a discount, or just toss it to open up the space for more salable items.  

It was at the wicker place that I had my first encounter with a "roach" coach. For those too young to know this term, a roach coach was a truck which stopped by at morning break and lunch to sell us stale bakery items, coffee and suspicious looking sandwiches. I generally did not partake but many of my fellow wickermen depended on it for a morning snack, and even for lunch.

Sad that the food trucks of the 80's, and the owner/operators, were ahead of their time. I assume they made enough to keep the truck in gas and tires, but nothing like what today's food truck operators can earn. As they say, timing is everything.

Back then, every Friday there was an exodus to the local banks to cash our weekly checks. Direct deposit didn't exist, at least not for small businesses to use. I was riding my bicycle (will be referred to as bike from here on out) to work at that time, having decided to eschew a car due to the increase in yearly insurance after a few minor traffic accidents, so sometimes Walt would drive me to the bank after we tossed my bike in the back of his truck. 

Banks generally maintained standard 9 to 5 hours on weekdays, but on Friday they stayed open until 8:00 due to the influx of everyone cashing their checks. Believe it or not, they had to use those line guides you sometimes see at amusement parks or in movie theaters, which created lines that went back and forth, snakelike. Sometimes you might wait 30, 40 minutes before getting to a teller, usually young women behind horizontal bars that required you to slide your check and deposit slip under them.

I generally had very little money in my bank account, living paycheck to paycheck, yet I also had very few expenses. At some point during my jobs of youth years, when I finally moved from my parents' house, I lived with a young divorcee who was renting two of the bedrooms in her 3 bedroom home. I clearly recall that my monthly rent was $180, which meant that when I cashed my weekly check, I took $45 from each, stashed it in my room, then paid Mary Ellen rent at the end of the month from the weekly saved money. 

I mentioned not driving, by choice, a bit ago, but that was not entirely true. When my car insurance rose to the point that it was more, per year, than the value of my car, by double, even triple, I decided to try to exist without it, turning to my bike for my only form of transportation, winter as well as summer.

Biking all year is something I can't imagine doing today, mature man that I am, but back then I was in shape. I could ride for hours, to the point where I was able to disassociate myself from my legs and tour the town as if riding a horse, or looking out a limo. (One particular night, while under the influence of a drug I will nickname Cid, I imagined that I was riding a horse, the clip clop clip of its hooves emanating from my wheels as they spun, a part of the experience.) 

I particularly enjoyed riding in the snow. First, because I invariably made better time than all the motorists stuck in their cars, having to obey the rules of the road, but also because it was just so darn fun. If the snow was deep enough, you could even come to a complete stop without removing your feet from the pedals. I surprised more than one driver with that move, waiting at a traffic light as if I had training wheels on my bike.

Ice, however, was no fun to navigate. Attempting to make a turn on an inch wide wheel on an ice covered roadway was challenging, to say the least. I feel many times, and unlike falling from your bike in he snow, hurts! Also, riding in the cold temps of winter was hell for my fingers, toes and nose. I recall one day when the temp was single digits, that I rode home on a flat tire, flat because it was so cold, and because I couldn't fathom taking off my gloves to attempt to pump air into it.  

By the way, another advantage we had when I was a young person, in addition to affordable rent, minimal phone bill, free TV, and a plethora of entry level job opportunities, among other things, was the availability of cheap cars. Cars that you bought from a relative or friend, cars that were made of steel, cars that you could buy used parts for from a junk yard, cars that you could "work" on even if you had basic mechanical skills, cars that cost less than $500. 

Cars that you named, Betsy being my favorite car of this time. She took me many a places, even when I was not in the best of shape to be driving. Sadly, I overcompensated on an icy road one day and crashed her into a guardrail. Nothing horrible, but enough damage to cause her next stop to be a junk yard.

Both before losing Betsy to that interaction with the guardrail, to after the three years I did without a motorized vehicle, I owned a number of cars, without monthly payments. I imagine it isn't even possible to find a reliable used car under $2000 let alone $500. Just another reason why I feel for today's young adults, so quickly do they become slaves to our consumer society and the large prices for all the big ticket items. 

I also worked at a candle shop. This was one of the jobs I procured through someone I knew, in this case the mother of one of those lifelong friends from McDonalds. In the beginning she was picking me up at my house, but eventually they created a 2nd shift and I worked from 4 to 12, or 3 to 11, or some such shift so I was back to riding my bike to work. Most people shudder at the thought of biking at night, but I thoroughly enjoyed cruising the streets from work to home after 11:00 at night. It was quiet, I could ride anywhere on the road, and if a full moon was in place, or even just a clear, cool, evening, the rides were spectacular. 

Candle making, at least taper candle making as I did, is a volume job. Hot wax is poured into a machine designed for this function, a steel box kind of thing with dozens of holes, each with a wick that runs from the spool at the bottom, through the machine, into a carriage then up to the top. The carriage is dropped to just above the level of area where the wax is poured, the wax hardens as it cools. Once cool enough, the excess wax is scraped from the tray, the carriage is cranked up revealing the tapers, the tapers are "caught" in the carriage (I can't recall the exact mechanical process of this), the wicks are cut and the tapers removed from the carriage. 

What is really cool, is that the waste is just plopped back into the vats of hot wax, red being the catchall for all colors if there aren't any more runs of that color that night.

As a result of this job, our group always had candles for our parties. Often I would be picked up at the end of shift by my friends and we would spend the AM hours in youthful exuberance, often greeting the new day with candles burnt to a nub, bleary eyes, and faint smiles.

Sadly, I just went to the funeral of my friend's mom, the woman who got me that job and was gracious enough to pick me up and take me to work. I never really liked footwear back then, in fact I still drive barefooted, and Mrs W was one of the moms who often commented on my bare feet, looking with disdain when we first met and I entered her home with naked feet. I considered going to her celebration of life sans shoes, and I truly think she would have laughed, but I didn't.    

I also did phone surveys when I was younger. My employers were two sisters although I imagine it was their dad who owned the company. It was very small time, a room with no more than a dozen booths from which we called people to ask about peanut butter and newspapers and all sorts of mostly mundane subjects and/or products. It was mostly high school kids, so I was the oldest, closer in age to my employers. I rode my bike throughout that job and I think they took pity on me, as there were times when I was the only on the phones, when business was slow. 

The surveys could sometimes be very intricate in that you might have multiple versions of the same survey but could only continue with the process if the correct opinion was given for the first question, even if that opinion could be applied to one of the other versions. I didn't always follow the rules so it was rare that I didn't make my quota, perhaps another reason the girls liked me.  

I also worked one summer for UPS. Apparently, young men like me were "hired" for the summer to fill in when the full timers were on vacation. At first I was assigned to unloading the 53' trucks. You were supposed to empty one in 90 minutes which really didn't allow for you to pay attention to any package marked fragile. 

The next step in the process was the slide. The packages tossed from the trucks moved along a conveyor belt to the top of a 20 foot slide. At the bottom of the slide stood a bunch of workers who removed the packages one at a time, then placed each in a series of cages which rotated behind the slide. Each cage was color coded and corresponded to a set of zip codes so we had to memorize which zip codes went into which colored cages. For some reason I remember that package for Croydon went into the white cage.

On one particular night I was on fire, removing packages at record speed. I have a distinct memory of the song Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty playing in the background; I envision that slide every time I hear the song. Anyway, it was the only time I was complimented on my work although I didn't have the heart to tell my supervisor that when he called me (I was often called into work sometime between midnight and 2AM, had no set schedule) I had been partying with my friends and Cid. When he commented that he hoped I would perform as well on my future shifts, I just smiled. 

The last job of my youth was one in which I "manufactured" dock lights. 

A dock light is attached to an arm, or swivel, that you can swing away from the loading dock to shine into the truck, thereby providing light to load or unload the goods. 

I worked for a very small company, two people to be precise. I was the labor, my boss was the office manager and sales person. He procured the orders, I assembled and shipped the lights. Being so small, we didn't have a factory space of our own, instead we rented a corner spot in someone else's work area. 

In retrospect, I must have made for an odd sight, coming to work each day, moving from work station to station, punch pressing here, assembling there, packing the completed lights into boxes for UPS to pick-up. I do recall asking for help at times, to borrow a tool or advice when I encountered a difficulty that perplexed me, but mostly I worked alone.

This would be the last job I had before going off to college, finally realizing at the age of 25 that these jobs of my youth needed to be put into the rear view mirror. 

In speaking to other people of my age, my employment experience is on the unique side, although many of my contemporaries could remember having multiple jobs as a youth. What I think most distinguishes my experience is the range of jobs, retail, manufacturing, shipping, even interpersonal, if one might count phone surveys as such. 

But again, the main point is that the opportunity for such a wide range of jobs, no experience required, existed in full bloom. It didn't matter that the pay was low, my expenses were even lower, especially during my no car years. More importantly, my expectations were low, in terms of needing expensive possessions (any possessions, really), other than where and when the next good time would be. 

Is it too much to suggest that during these years, I was merely allowed to be young? To be irresponsible, to be carefree, to be selfish, even. There was a time that I believed that we should travel, acquire more memories than things, spend time with friends while making new ones, then, once we reach the age of 40, work until we die. Obviously, I have altered my perception a bit since my 40's are a couple of decades in the past, but I sometimes wonder if the idea is still valid, if the idea of working until we are 65 then hoping we have enough resources and reasonable health to enjoy our remaining time is the wrong approach. I have encountered far too many people who banked on the latter, only to struggle financially as they age, or to suffer medical issues that keep them house bound, or worse, far worse, to have everything in place financially only to pass away within a few years of retiring.

The jobs of my youth did not provide for a retirement fund, or a decades long career, but they did grant me the chance to see America as I will detail in my next chapter, Wanderlust Begins.

 

 

Lots of Letters, a Follow-up

In my last post, I mentioned that I had begun sorting through all the letters I received as a young adult, or at least all those I had saved. It took me a number of hours, but I finished the task yesterday.

Impressions?

First, I was extremely fortunate to have had such friendships during those years. There were times of my young adulthood that I didn't recognize my blessings in that area, dark times when I imagined that there was no point in continuing, mad, crazy times when I engaged in all sorts of foolish, dangerous activities that are not uncommon among the young who feel they are indestructible, and confusing times when I experienced both love and hatred, realized the depths of joy and evil that people are capable of, wondered about the "point" of it all, questioned, moved two steps forward, one step back.

Growing pains, some might say, but seemingly a bit more intense than most of my friends, if their letters, and my journals (of which I believe I have found all but one), can be believed.

Second, the bulk of the letters I have are from young ladies, which means that I sent most of my letters to members of the opposite sex. Perhaps this is not all that unique in itself, corresponding with women that I "thought" about, but the bulk of those letters were from girls with whom I never had a romantic encounter. 

That doesn't mean that there aren't letters from my male friends. Quite a few actually. And there certainly were some in which real emotions, real feelings and fears were expressed. But nothing like those I received from my women correspondents. While there was certainly the occasional letter from a young lady who expressed little more than an obligation to answer a letter received from me, the vast amount of those letters expressed real joy, surprise, and appreciation that I wrote them, especially from those who were away at college. It was as if in that brief note, I represented all the memories and roots and comfort that "home" represented for them as they navigated their first experience on their own.

In other words, they valued my friendship, and the fact that I took the time to let them know they were in my thoughts. I think that there may be something to the fact that we just don't do that as much as we should these days, just check in on our family and friends, for no particular reason. 

Of course, it may have helped that I would recount just about anything in my letters to them. Without realizing it, perhaps my expressed vulnerability in those letters enabled them to be vulnerable in their responses.

I am fortunate to still be in touch with some of those letter writers, although, sadly, one of them, whom I would have been motivated to reconnect with after reading her letters, has passed from this plane. That is a regret that I will have to live with, to know that I touched something in her, but was not fully aware of it, did not give our friendship (or perhaps relationship) the attention, or chance, it deserved.

Of course, I don't have access to what I wrote her, I don't have a clue as to how many of my letters still exist in the world, and I am certainly profoundly content with the woman I married, with the children we raised, with the life we had and will continue to share. If there is a heaven, and I am sure she is there, perhaps we will have our time to talk some more, to sort out what was real and what was just young people staying in touch.

As for my idea of starting to write letters anew, I am on board with the plan. I printed out a few copies of my original "Lots of Letters" post, one of which I will include with the first correspondence I send, in hopes that some of those recipients will accept my challenge to write letters again. I have started a "letter log" so that I can keep track of who I communicate with, in hopes of contacting everyone from whom I have an old letter, in the next year or so.

That might be a challenge, as I don't have addresses for most of them, and a few I haven't communicated with in over 40 years, but it is amazing what you can find on the internet with the correct, specific, keywords. The good news though, is that the first bunch of people I contact are still good friends which won't take any effort in terms of addressing their letters.

I am hoping to send each of them one of their letters to me, which may or may not be wise. It seems that many people wax nostalgic about the good old days, but do so with rose colored glasses. Some prefer not to think of how young and naive they may have been, or how down right careless they may have acted. For better or worse, I do not water down my recollected memories when I recount them, the good, the bad and the ugly. Sure, I prefer the fun time stories, but do not suppress the times when I was cruel to my parents with my extreme thoughtfulness (I have apologized to my mom a number of times since my dad passed many years ago, but not to him, which is another of those regrets), or selfish (as most young people are), or even self destructive, considering all the drugs and risky behavior I engaged in. 

I prefer to think that all of it, all those memories, all those times when I was good and bad, are what makes me who I am now. It is the accumulation of it all, and to pretend certain things didn't happen to maintain some kind of responsible "adult" standing now that we are well into our mature years, seems hypocritical. Although, I also know some people who beat themselves up, to this day, over all their youthful mistakes. I guess between those two choices, pretending they never happened or angst and anxiety, the former might be a better defense. 

Somewhat unrelated to all this talk of letter writing and memories, I saw that a few people accessed a post I wrote in 2018 called Intellectual Leprosy. It was about Simone Weil, whom I had just read about, and with whom I was not familiar up until then. The term, intellectual leprosy was hers, not mine, and it describes a thinking process, or perhaps lack of thinking process is more apt, that exists in many of our institutions, none more so than within our political parties. Strangely, without remembering that post about Simone, I had a similar conversation with someone yesterday about the aspect of religious teaching that can sometimes cause such intellectual leprosy when it comes to following dogma and man-made rules which seem to conflict with the spirit of the religion and its founders' teachings. A lack of questioning authority was never one of my faults so it is sometimes difficult for me to discuss important topics with people who are all in on the words from their leader, none so much as those who hang on every word of the current occupant of the White House.

After reading the post this morning, and her theory, it is striking how her worst fears are being realized, and illustrated, everyday in our news cycles. Here is a link to my post, but more importantly, you might be better enlightened if you read something she wrote instead. 

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2018/11/intellectual-leprosy.html

Finally, this will be my 700th post. I am experiencing a massive up tick in "hits", a pattern which started at the beginning of last year, 2025. I rarely receive any comments on my blog, so I don't have a strong understanding of why so much traffic. Perhaps it is as simple as continuing to do something for a long period of time. To add one final regret to the two I have listed, this increase in interest in my writing reminds me of my biggest regret, not pursuing a writing career right from the start. Oh well. I guess I don't mind the label late bloomer all that much.

 

Lots of Letters

When I was a young adult, I wrote a lot of letters to my friends and acquaintances. A lot of letters. 

Now of course, very few people write letters since we can email our thoughts for instant access and feedback, or text, or Instagram, or Messenger....

We did have phones back then, those clunky, black, rotary dial phones plus the ones that hung on the wall and had outrageously long cords so you could hide in the closet for privacy. But, while I did use the phone, there were strict limitations as to who you could call. Only those numbers in the same exchange were part of the monthly standard package. Any phone call to a friend away at school, or who lived out of state or even in a different part of Pennsylvania, resulted in a surcharge. So,while the monthly bill was low, there was big restrictions on who you could call and how long you could talk.

Hence, letters.

I very specifically remember having a conversation with the mother of the woman I was boarding with (I almost typed living with but that might connote a sexual relationship, of which there was none) during which I complained that I sometimes became despondent over the lack of return letters. I felt that I was doing all the work in maintaining many of my correspondences. 

Flash forward to this past week when I pulled out the bag of letters I had received during that time, roughly 1978 through 1983 or so, and it is clear that I my complaint was unjustified. I must have a couple hundred letters in that bag, a virtual treasure trove of communications from all the people that mattered during those tumultuous years. And I don't just mean, 'Hi, how's it going?", notes, I am talking multiple page aacounts about the emotions, activities, fears and philosophies of a myriad of young adults who were part of my life.

While I have only started sorting them by author, and have maybe looked at 10% of them so far, I am starting to think that maybe we need to start a letter writing campaign, and not just among us "older" people who remember writing letters, but for anyone with a pen and paper. 

Certainly it is true that when I send emails to my friends now, I can get wordy. And that I even occasionally get emails back that have substance. But I sometimes wonder if the sender and receiver in this situation might be distracted at the abundance of emails that must be checked. I would like to think that while personal emails are received in the manner they are composed, they still exist in world of quantity over quality.

A letter, on the other hand, especially one written and received today, is much more likely to be considered "special" by the receiver. 

Ah, but how to "write" such a being. Virtually all the letters I have been blessed to have received are hand written. Most in cursive, if you are of an age that you remember what that was. My cursive leaves much to be desired at this point, so I would have to print my message. Is that acceptable? I could type it out then print it on my computer, but that seems impersonal to me. Am I wrong to think that a computer generated letter defeats the purpose?

At any rate, I am going to give it a try. I am going to print a brief letter on a blank card to start. I still send out Christmas cards in the mail, so I have plenty of addresses to consider. Perhaps I will even print out this post and include in the letter so the receiver has two things to think about, the letter itself and the concept of trying it on their own.

Some of you may remember the concept of the chain letter that existed a few decades ago. There were various reasons to start a chain letter in those days, for fun, for money, for inspiration, for charity, even to scare people into doing something so as not to "break the chain".

At the least, since it is so very obvious that people spend too much time staring and swiping at their phone, getting a letter in the mail might provide a little respite from the tech that seems to permeate our lives, and maybe even remind us that personal communication, no matter the method, is still worth the effort.

#writealettertoday 

It's Been A While

Last year an acquaintance of mine reminded me that our 50th high school reunion would be this year, and suggested that we go. I met Bill in grade school, although not sure which grade. Suffice it to say that I have known him longer than anyone else in my life, excepting my own parents. Bill and I were in cub scouts together, my mom being the den mother. We were the best of friends until 6th grade when my parents moved us from Fayette Street to the suburbs. 

As fate would have it, just two years later we were both enrolled at LaSalle College High School, eventually graduating as bicentennial graduates in 1976. To be honest, we did not renew the friendship we had in grade school, not finding ourselves in even one class together. We had gone our own ways, as they say, both developing new friendships. And, once high school ended, we did not stay in touch. In fact, I am a bit fuzzy on when we began contacting each other again. Perhaps when my father passed, as I remember him sending me condolences. 

Since then, just over 13 years, while not getting together in person, Bill and I shared Christmas greetings, emails, and the occasional comment from him on one of my posts. As it turned out, we did not agree on many of the topics of the day, but we were able to discuss them with civility.

So, again, after his suggestion that we go to the reunion, and actually be in each other's presence for the first time in 45 plus years, I agreed, although tentatively.

My high school experience was not a highlight of my life. By junior year my teenage rebellion was beginning to emerge, blooming fully by senior year. The teachers at LaSalle did not encourage my talents, often seeming to desire to squash them, particularly when it came to creative writing. I had friends at school, but less so outside of the school grounds. Upon reflection, of course, it was mostly my fault that I did not thrive there, but at the time, all I could think of was ending my career there. Graduation day was, and is not memorable as I recall nothing about it.

Which is why I was tentative to attend the reunion. Plus, my experience at the one I did attend, the fifth year, ended with a physical threat by a classmate over a perceived slight that had occurred while in school, a slight that I didn't even recall as it was something he said someone told him, not something that occurred face to face.

This doesn't mean that I haven't thought about the guys I met there, hadn't occasionally googled a name when a name popped into my head. In fact, even as recently as a few years ago, I have dreamed about high school, sometimes struggling with a locker combo, or forgetting my schedule. Ok, yea, mostly uncomfortable dreams. Clearly an indication that I had some latent issues to resolve, even all these years later.

But, Bill was consistent in reminding me about the upcoming reunion, and, after receiving the schedule, events spread out over three days, I decided to attend pieces of the reunion on two of the days. Tuesday featured a tour of the school (completely different) and a mass, then a social afterwards, then last night a dinner at a country club in the area of the school.

Back then, 1972-1976, class sizes in public and parochial high schools where I lived were three, four hundred, some even bigger. At LaSalle we had less than 200. Some might say the cream of the crop, although I am sure those loyal to St Joe's Prep might disagree.

I happened to be a scholarship kid, that partial financial assistance being the only reason my parents could consider sending me there. As it turned out, being a big fish in the small pond of my elementary school did not prepare me for actual work to keep up with the smartest kids I would ever go to school with. It wasn't that I couldn't match their intellectual prowess, or come close, it was more that I didn't know how to do the work, and by junior and senior year, didn't want to do it.

A perfect example was a Psychology class, senior year I believe. Now, I did very well in these type of classes, perhaps could have been an effective psychologist or psychiatrist had I possessed the proper motivation and ambition. For this particular class, the syllabus was very clear in that the majority of the grade would come from the various tests, the midterm, the final, and 10% for an end of year paper. 

As the end of the year approached, I had a solid A average and determined that I could get a B even without the 10% for the paper. I don't recall the exact conversations I had with the teacher, but it was made clear to me that the paper must be done. I refused, and received a D for the class, even though the math for a B was on my side. While I can assume that this was supposed to be a lesson in work ethic, in trying to do your best, in seeing things through, perhaps even in doing things you don't want to do because that's what adults do, I perceived it as a power play by a teacher who couldn't stand the thought that someone would calculate that a B was good enough after doing A work all year. And I perceived it as just another example of those in power, changing the rules, just because they could.

I know, immaturity, right?

Another bit more insidious reason for not attending, was that I might have to face the fact that I was just not "present" all that much in those four years, even invisible in some respects. Which meant that I might not be recognized or remembered if I were to show up now and who needs that kind of confidence smasher.

Believe it or not, Facebook helped me a little bit at this point. I had begun to search for the names of those who might remember me once I started leaning towards attending, wondering if I would have anything in common with them now. As it turned out, I reconnected, albeit loosely with a few, and armed with the knowledge that Bill and I could catch up, at the least, I was actually looking forward, well, was less filled with trepidation, as the day approached.

I was hoping I would not feel like an interloper, as opposed to a classmate, that I would get at least, the same amount of "Hey Joe, it's been a while, but I remember you", as blank stares of total non recognition.

Perhaps at this point you are thinking that it must have been a positive experience, or else I wouldn't be writing about it. Perhaps then, you don't know me as well as you think, if you believe I wouldn't tell a story of disappointment, considering my expressions of hopelessness with the state of affairs in America today.

But, yes, as it turned out I had a wonderful experience, perhaps even a bit uplifting. Don't get me wrong, I still think we are up to our necks in sh**, as a country, and a few nights of feel good reminiscing will do little to change the trajectory.

Whether some of the greetings I received were just men who preferred to pretend to remember me (which in itself is a good sign of fellowship) as opposed to actually remembering me in a class or from a good conversation, doesn't really matter. For just those two nights anyway, a group of 50 or 60 men from a variety of upbringings who had lived a myriad of experiences in the last half a century (yikes), were able to come together and have a fu**ing good time. No fighting or arguing or remembering past slights. Just a bunch of guys glad to be on this side of the ground, able to remember, at least for a night or two, their young lives when anything was possible, when the world was their oyster, as they say. Even the fact that I hate oysters did not matter!

And, full disclosure, I had longer conversations in those two days with many of the guys than I had in four years in high school, a sentiment which I heard repeated a bunch of times by other attendees. 

As I was driving home, I imagined that it would have been good if I had been able to put into words what I was feeling. If I had been able to say to everyone that despite our differences, and I am sure that the gamut of political and social perspective was present in those rooms, we shared a common experience, and that even though that common experience was for only four years (4 out of 68 being less than 6%) of our lives, it was powerful enough to create the tremendous environment of good will that we experienced.

The power of common experience.

In these days of extreme partisanship, in these times when what separates and divides us seems to drive every single conversation, it would certainly be helpful if we could concentrate on what we have in common as opposed to what drives wedges. 

The power of common experience could be just the force that counters the tribalism that pervades our communities, our state, our country, our world. After all, we all share the label Earthlings. 

  

Birthright Citizenship

On January 20th, 2025, days after being inaugurated, Donald Trump signed executive order 14160 in which he redefines the interpretation  of the 14th Amendment, section 1, which defines birthright citizenship. Here is that Amendment which was passed by Congress in June of 1866, and ratified by the states in July of 1868.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

The argument for this alteration was that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to address those born in America to slaves who did not have citizenship, not to mention any rights normally associated with human beings, and that it was not meant to include children born to people here illegally. (I guess all those slaves brought here against their will were here legally?)

A quick aside. The reason why people born to slaves on American soil were not automatically granted citizenship before the passage of the 14th Amendment was because the Naturalization Acts of 1790 and 1795, which were passed to grant United States citizenship for all people living in the colonies at the time, only granted citizenship to white people. Some might argue that if the founders had true divine inspiration they might have included all people regardless of skin color.

Anyway, what is being debated here is the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" which I underlined in the above reproduction. In the minds of some people, anyone born to a person who came to America illegally might be said to be outside that requirement, the idea being that the parents of that child do not have allegiance to America, hence their breaking of immigration laws to gain access. 

I am not immune to the logic of this point although, considering that the vast number of Americans who are citizens today, are descendants of people who came to America when there were no immigration laws, seems rather petty. Certainly, we can debate how many people we should allow entry into our country, how easy or hard it should be to become a citizen, but do we really want to punish the children of those who work around the immigration laws? 

Not to mention, we don't withhold or remove citizenship for those children born to Americans who blatantly violate our laws.   

Wouldn't it be more beneficial to identify those who are here illegally, register them as prospective citizens, provide a path to achieve this designation which would include some form of payment, all the while removing the minority of those who commit violent crimes, or who are repeat offenders of non-violent crimes?

Considering the budget for ICE is tens of billions of dollars, it seems very cost ineffective to spend money tracking down people who have only the blemish of entering the country illegally, but have since been upstanding, productive non-citizens.

Speaking of non-citizens, my paternal family line, the part of my family that a few of my Trump voting siblings are extremely proud of, includes non-citizens. Neither of my paternal grandparents were United States citizens when my father was born. It was only after the third of his children were born did my paternal grandfather apply for citizenship, and not till after all her children were born did my paternal grandmother become a citizen. Perhaps my father, uncle and two aunts were not anchor babies in the strict sense, as my paternal grandparents were here for 15 plus years before applying for citizenship, but they were certainly born to non-citizens. 

I sometime will ask those who favor this new interpretation about their family tree. Many have only a faint idea about their ancestry while being so adamant about who is American and who isn't.  

Of course, some people might say it is not about crimes, or jobs, or resources spent on people here illegally rather than on Americans, it is really about prejudice. It is not hard to make the case the president and some of his supporters are racist. He has made it abundantly clear that he prefers immigrants be white, and conversely, that he believes people from "those" countries are vermin, less than human, have bad genes, etc.

Notwithstanding the prejudice of Trump, I could understand someone whose family history included ancestors born in America for 150 years or more, making a case for "American" to be defined as a person with an extended lineage of people born here, but two of Trump's three wives are immigrants and his mother was born in Scotland. As is true of so many Americans today, a large percentage of us are first or second generation Americans with much longer family histories in Europe. I guess what I am saying is that it seems very disingenuous for so many first and second generation Americans whose ancestors came to America when the borders were truly open, to be so hung up on punishing today's immigrants who, like our own grandparents, came here looking for opportunity and freedom.

Another thing I ask people who defend this new interpretation of the 14th Amendment is, what did you do to earn American citizenship?

Unless they happen to be recently naturalized citizens, most either say that they were born here, without the added reference to their parents, such as "I was born to American citizens", or they say nothing because they know they are Americans precisely because of birthright citizenship. In either case, they had no control over who their parents were or which country they happened to be conceived and birthed in. They are the winners of the birth lottery which is as random a chance as there is, yet are adamant in punishing the losers of that same lottery, the babies who were born to non-citizens.

When I further dig in and say, "I guess God doesn't love them enough to have allowed them to be born to American parents", I mostly get silence. 

You see, that's the thing. Trump has convinced millions of Americans that people who want to come to America today are criminals, rapists, people left out of insane asylums, etc, so they are OK with denying the children of those people the exact same citizenship rights that they enjoy, even thought they did nothing to earn that right.

Finally, on multiple occasions, Trump has said that America is the only country that has birthright citizenship. This is, of course, just another lie that he tells people who prefer to live in ignorance, and prejudice, rather than googling the question which would reveal that many countries, especially those in North America, have the same birthright citizenship rules as we do.

I don't know how the Supreme Court will rule on this issue, although there was some sense during the oral arguments that they were skeptical of the arguments for the executive order. 

Frankly, the fact that they had the oral arguments in the first place, is a bad indicator of just how obsequious this Supreme Court is towards the whims of Trump. Once the executive order was deemed unconstitutional by lower courts, SCOTUS should have refused to take the case, especially considering the decisions which have already been rendered by the Supreme Court in the past, most importantly the case of United States vs Wong Kim Ark. Feel free to google it for the details, but in essence, the Court ruled that a Chinese child born to non-citizen Chinese parents, a young man who was refused re-entry into America because of anti-Chinese prejudice at the time, was deemed an American citizen by rule of, you guessed it, the 14th Amendment, section 1.

Let's just hope that the Roberts Court rebukes Trump in no uncertain terms. They owe us that after their horrendous decision to gut the Voting Rights Act.   

 

 

Rule of Law Revisited

While in the process of my grand plan to update all my posts to a larger font, I found three posts from 2018 about the Rule of Law. Rather than provide links to them as I usually do, I decided to revisit them, and with a few tweaks, present them word for word in this post, then comment at the end.

Here is the first, and again, these were all posted within about three weeks of each other, two in June, one in July, 2018, about two years into Trump's first term.

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There has been a lot of talk lately about the Rule of Law, how it is fundamental in our democracy, and for some, how the Trump Presidency seems to be a threat to both the basic tenets of its importance and the underpinnings of the ideals which created our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Heady stuff!

But after reading the Lapham's Spring edition, called Rule of Law, I find my belief in the founders perspective that all men are created equal, their insistence on the three branches of government as a protection against tyranny, and the noble concept that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, somewhat questioned.

This is not to say that I doubt the importance of the founders' grand experiment with democracy, nor their belief that rule by the people is preferable to rule by divine right.  It is clear, that some form of democratic rule in which the people have a say in the direction of their country is a far better system than one without such inclusion.

But what, exactly, were the founders' main concerns when they created those incredible documents during the tumult of our nation's birth? 

We often forget that most of those great men were land owners and/or men of business, with education and wealth beyond the vast majority of their fellow colonists.  They understood the history of property rights, were well versed in the meaning of the Magna Carta, and knew very well that commerce, personal property ownership, and laws which protected one's ability to create and sustain that wealth, were threatened by a government that found it all too easy to take without asking and tax without representation.  Was it merely about money and land?  Certainly not, but lets not be naive to think that they did not abhor taxes, at least partly, because it cut into their profits, and less so because of the morality of the issue.

In Lewis Lapham's preamble, he describes very succinctly the distinction between values which enable a democratic society to prosper as compared to values which embody a capitalistic society, especially those capitalistic values reflected in the various forms of trickle down economics that basically say that "money ennobles rich people making them healthy, wealthy and wise;  money corrupts poor people, making them lazy, ignorant, and sick."  It is this driving force that exults in tax cuts that transfer upwards of 80% of the advantage to those already rich, while justifying cuts to the safety net programs that stave off poverty, starvation and death of the less advantaged.

This is not to say that the framers wanted our country to fall to a state where only the rich have power and influence, but it is a result of their core belief that possessions and wealth must be protected from the government's grasp, and it is perfect justification for a populist leader who can manipulate that message to turn the everyday citizens against any government regulation that restricts individual rights regardless of whether that restriction protects them against polluted air and water, the destruction of the environment, or the creation of a "corporation" that has all the power of a person but no responsibilities for those people who create it when that entity breaks laws or engages in immoral acts.

When the government becomes the enemy of the people, there must be recourse for the citizens to retake rule and create a new form of government.  It is a rallying cry that was as apparent and powerful today as it was 242 years ago.  

But what do we do when the government is run by people who have perverted the rule of law to only favor those with wealth and influence, who set themselves above the law while using its tenets to control the population?  And, who do so, not through force or deceit (Mueller's probe not withstanding), but by convincing the citizenry, through attacks on the free press, government run propaganda outlets, and a constant stream of divisive tweets that divert our attention by demonizing those who disagree, are of different color or country of origin. Who then use the foundation of our unique government, the executive, legislative and judicial branches, to create a fortress of laws that will protect their wealth at the expense of the people.   

What do we do when the rule of law has been altered so insidiously that it no longer seeks justice for the many, but prosperity for the few?

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I ended my last post with the following question:

What do we do when the rule of law has been altered so insidiously that it no longer seeks justice for the many, but prosperity for the few?

Some might think it is specifically directed at the policies of the current administration, and certainly there is reason to be alert when one considers the changes that have been implemented in the area of environmental protection, consumer fraud protection, and worker's rights, to name a few.

But, after reading The Rule of Law edition of Lapham's Quarterly, it is painfully obvious that the law has been fashioned far too often to benefit those with the most, to the detriment of those in the minority or without resources.  In other words, that this is nothing new.

Two effective illustrations to that point are Lie of the Land from I Saw the Sky Catch Fire by T. Obinkaram Echewa, and an excerpt from Jill Leovy's Ghettoside.

I Saw the Sky Catch Fire consists of memories told by the grandmother of the narrator about the Women's War of 1929 in Nigeria.  It details the process by which the residents of the small villages in Nigeria slowly lost their rights, both as landowners and citizens.  To put it bluntly, "the while man made and broke laws as he went along, shook hands to treaties he had no intention of keeping, violated oaths the same day, week or month that he swore them."  Similar to how we treated the native American Indian here in North America, the law was used without concern to gain whatever those with the power and the arms wanted to gain.  When the law was violated by a native to the land, he was punished swiftly and violently.  When it was violated by someone in power, the law was changed to provide justification for whatever atrocity might have been committed.

(I could mention here the recent justification of separating illegal immigrant children from their parents, a cruel and horrendous policy that has been defended by citing, not only the rule of law but the Bible as well, but I will resist the desire to pick such low hanging fruit.)

Jill Leovy's piece reflects the research she did in the early 2000's while working as a crime correspondent for the LA Times.  For me, it addresses two salient points.  First, the wonderment of many in the white community about why law abiding citizens in minority communities, especially African American communities, do not more actively help the police turn in those criminals that live among them, and second, how those in minority communities perceive the law and the police. 

If I had a nickel for every time I heard a white, right leaning pundit dismiss statistics about the disproportionate representation of blacks in the judicial system who are arrested, charged and incarcerated with the statement, "well, they are criminals, so they should be put in jail", I would have a bunch of nickels.  The fact that most research shows a race bias in our criminal justice system, from the perception of the everyday officer, straight through to the judges on the bench, seems easily ignored.  

Sadly, there will not be a time in their lives when a white man will be transported back in time to his teenage years as a black man, to live the same life he did again with a darker skin.  Assuming he was an average youth, he most likely will have 2-3 brushes with the law, only this time his parents won't be called, he will be arrested, his bail won't be met, he will be remanded to await trial, and his sentence will be executed to "send a message", not suspended since "boys will be boys".   

Is it any wonder then, why some in black neighborhoods who have experienced first hand the effect that having a darker skin has during a police interaction, not to mention the very real possibility that they have heard family stories handed down by their parents and grandparents which describe the Jim Crow laws of the early 20th century and the complicity of the police in the lynchings of that time, might be less than encouraged to cooperate with the police? Past history indicates less than positive future results.

Leovy came to believe that inner-city violence was occurring at the level of a "public health catastrophe" and began a website to track the murder victims, which listed over 1100 in the LA county area alone in 2004.  Truly an epidemic!  But, rather than doubling down on efforts to address the problem, cops patrolling these areas often heard the phrase "one time" to reflect the fact that they seemed to prefer one short visit to a black neighborhood, along the lines of "been there, done that" as opposed to making a real effort to address crime.  One might even conclude the white majority who controlled the law, preferred a high murder rate; less of them to worry about.

Contrast that, and the crack cocaine epidemic of that time which claimed the lives of still more African American young people, or the HIV epidemic of the late 20th century that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in the gay communities, with the current opioid epidemic which is getting so much more attention since it is effecting white communities, and perhaps we might get a glimpse as to why minorities not only distrust white laws and its corresponding system of justice, but, as Leovy discovered, might gravitate to a ghettoside "law" which while also ruthless at times, better reflected the everyday existence of the residents of the area.  Or put more directly, was one they understood and felt was consistent, as opposed to the white man's system that always leaned towards a prejudiced and impersonal result.

Attempting to govern a free people via the Rule of Law, is certainly progress over a ruling class limited by birth or income or political ideology.  But we must not forget that the rules are created and enforced by people, and thus subject to the best and worst of our species.  History is replete with laws that seem barbaric today, and there are undoubtedly some current laws that will be viewed by future historians with befuddlement, just as I (hope) we view white only bathrooms and water fountains of the mid-20th century today.

The challenge is to walk that tightrope between obedience of the Rule of Law so as to avoid chaos and anarchy, while always staying alert to those laws which demonize other humans, create or encourage non-equal treatment of those in the minority, and which are used to justify crimes that violate the Big Rule that transcends religion and nation; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

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This will be the last post on this topic, at least for now.

First, there were a few more amazing essays in the Lapham's spring edition called Rule of Law.  One was by Joan Cocks, professor emeritus at Mount Holyoke College, called Immune From the Law? and the second by Ralph Nadar called Land of the Lawless. 

Cocks' essay discusses various outlying organizations that reject the most basic understanding of our society and the rules which have been established by society, which admittedly, attempt to balance the level of individual freedoms with the need for laws that limit such freedom.  She details a few of these organizations using history to describe other times when tectonic shifts in society created an environment that produced philosophies and reactions similar to that which we are seeing today in light of the growing fear of globalization.  As I read my summary, I realize I am not giving her essay true justice, but found it extremely fascinating and helpful in understanding the wave of nationalism (populism) that exists in the world today.

Nadar's essay focuses on what I can only label as a rebuke to the belief that America operates under "the rule of law" and that "nobody is above it".  Again, an enlightening piece, notwithstanding the possible scenario should Robert Mueller subpoena President Trump.  Nadar delves into many examples of how the rule of law is skewed most severely to benefit those with resources which the average person does not have access to, resulting in laws that do more harm than good, if good is measured as the most benefit for the most people. 

As a connection to this essays, and perhaps, a way to illustrate how the points made by these two thinkers can be linked to current events, I did some research on illegal immigration.

First, are you aware that President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA)?  And, that this law, among other things, required employers to attest to their employees immigration status, made it illegal to hire and recruit illegal immigrants as workers, legalized certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants, and (hold on to your hats) granted amnesty to about 4 million illegal immigrants who had entered America before 1982, lived continuously in America since then, had committed no crimes, admitted their guilt of illegal entry, paid a fine, and possessed a minimal understanding of English and American history, etc.  Then, as a follow up to address the children of said illegal immigrants, signed an executive order in 1987 legalizing children whose parents qualified under IRCA, thereby creating a blanket deferral of deportation for these children.

The law was intended to address the illegal immigration problem by focusing on one of the main reasons people were entering America - jobs - with some of the onus placed on the employers who, it was thought, would significantly help stem the tide of illegal immigration if they stopped hiring the immigrants.

That law is still on the books.  It is still illegal to hire an undocumented worker, or help an undocumented worker obtain false identities so as to obtain work.  And, since then, E-Verify has been created, which is an internet-based system that compares information entered by an employer from an employee's Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to records available to the US Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to confirm employment.

Unfortunately, the law is unequally enforced.  The recent images which were splashed all over the media, while embarrassing the president to back off the separation of children from their parents did not change his belief in a zero tolerance immigration policy.  After all, those people were breaking the laws his supporters are all too eager to note.

But what about the employers who are hiring undocumented workers?  Most estimates put the number of illegal immigrants working in our country at 8 million individuals.  How many of those employers are in jail today, separated from their children?  Where is the zero tolerance policy on them?

You see, the law was not meant to punish employers.  There were some years under Bush (1) that an aggressive approach to identify businesses was employed, but the simple fact was that some industries are dependent on employees who will work long hours for low pay and no benefits.  And, of course, some of those industries have friends in Congress so the actual working of the law only requires a "good faith effort" by employers.   If someone produces a SS card and driver's license and is willing to work 12 hour days in the blazing heat or close quarters of a meat processing plant, the employer can quite easily avoid the  responsibility of checking the employee's eligibility to work by blaming the employee who presented false documents, especially since there has been no federal law passed to make E-Verify mandatory. 

President Trump does support E-Verify, and has indicated he would sign a bill making it mandatory.  Such bills have passed through committee, but as far as I can tell, have never received a floor vote.  Democrats have resisted its passage without addressing a path to citizenship for those who have lived and worked productively in America for multiple years, without criminal activity, and those children who were brought to America illegally by their parents.  Similar to the handling of illegal immigrants by President Reagan and Congress in 1986.  I am not sure why some GOP representatives do not support it, but could conclude that their votes are effected by campaign donations from industries that depend on undocumented workers to turn a profit.  Or perhaps they represent the constituents in the states whose economy is more dependent on undocumented workers.

Why our elected officials can't do both, help stem the tide of illegal immigrants by removing one of their main reasons for entering illegally, while also establishing a path to citizenship for those who have proven themselves to be productive law abiding people since their arrival, speaks to the essays mentioned above.  

The fact is, there is a small but vocal minority of Americans who wish our country to be white again, and resist granting citizenship to so many brown skinned people, while there is even a smaller but far more powerful group of people who have lined their pockets via the sweat and blood of workers who allow them to avoid paying certain taxes (or worse, collect the taxes from the workers but don't turn them in), that there are far too many Americans who seek simple answers to complicated questions, and too many politicians, who are more concerned with getting re-elected, or making pretty speeches, than they are with actually solving the immigration problem.  And, sadly, that a partisanship wall has polarized our country into an us vs them mentality.  It is as if cooperation has become a bad word.

So, employers are generally immune from the law while undocumented workers and illegal immigrants are treated with zero tolerance.  Our President calls for cooperation from the Democrats while demonizing them personally, and ridiculing them at every turn for their past efforts.  And, those with the most continue to reap the benefits of our great country as demonstrated by the recent tax reform effort and the ongoing attacks on programs that help the least fortunate.

Certainly, justice has never been blind, and perhaps will never be as long as humans are in charge of the system which determines right and wrong.  And, if my choices are having a system of rules and laws that are followed by most people, at least most everyday people, rather than no system, then I choose the former.  Thankfully, we have people who will continue to remind us that the Rule of Law is a concept that requires fairness in the creation and execution of the laws which encompass it, and that we need to be always on guard when our body of laws tilts too far in one direction or, worse, viewed as a method of controlling the populace while rewarding those in power.  

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OK, that's the three posts, with a few alterations. 

First, what a stark revelation to be reminded that Reagan was president when some humane immigration laws were passed, policies that treated immigrants, legal and illegal, as people, not vermin, as our current president likes to call them.  

Second, the good news is that we are still talking about the Rule of Law in America, still debating why people who knowingly engaged in, or knew about but ignored the activities related to Jeffrey Epstein have generally not paid any price whatsoever for their immoral and illegal abuse of young women. 

That we are still debating why people who attacked the Capitol building of the United States of America, caused millions of dollars in damage and threatened the lives of the VP as well as all the members of Congress, were pardoned by the president.

That we are still discussing why the current president was never put on trial for his alleged misconduct in taking classified documents that did not belong to him, then lying about having them, and for his role in instigating the January 6th riot which was intended to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election. 

That we are openly weighing the legality of the firing of hundreds of FBI agents and DOJ lawyers simply because they investigated those "patriots" who attacked the Capitol.

Of course, the bad news is that we don't seem to have made much progress since the posts I wrote in 2018; in fact, we seem to have regressed. Far too much illegal activity in which this president has and continues to engage in, has been normalized so that there is very little chance for accountability. He has worn us down through a shock and awe program of grifting, lying, and abuse of the norms of what we previously deemed to be presidential demeanor.

In fact, I would argue that we have taken a step backwards considering how much influence is being afforded to the super rich in America today. When the most visible people at a presidential inauguration are the richest people in America, one might rightfully assume that their presence indicates who has the ear of the president, who will most profit from the soon to be executive order onslaught, and who will be left bearing the cost of allowing those with the most control the reigns of power. 

In some ways, and despite Trump's obvious affinity to autocrats and strongmen, we seem much closer to an aristocracy than an autocracy, although in this case, the autocrat is one of the aristocrats.

As I said in one of the above posts, the Rule of Law in America has always been applied unequally, always favored those with the most resources to find loopholes and skirt justice. But, while there was some progress in this area, some recognition that people born without a Y chromosome, or with darker skin, or who were placed on Earth by God to inhabit a country not called America, we seem to have stalled in that progress in the last decade. 

While that regression does somewhat align with that famous escalator ride in 2015, it is only because the voters of America chose to elevate such a person to the White House. Whether history will prove this decision, these two decisions, as a just another step in the decline of America, or the ultimate expression of an electorate which has lost its way, lost its moral foundation, lost its belief that America succeeds when we all succeed, not when just a small minority does, may one day be known.

For now, there is no time but the present to revisit how the Rule of Law should work, how it was conceived by the founders, and how it should continue to evolve so that justice, while not completely blind, still results in some form of accountability for everyone.   






 

Is It Enough?

I've had the idea for this post rattling around in my head for about a month now, since the last No Kings protest at the end of March. In fact, there are a number of embryonic posts percolating in my brain right now, which I take as both a good and bad sign.

Good, because despite my often stated waning hopefulness in what I interpret as the decline of America, clearly I haven't fully given up or I wouldn't bother thinking about things, or posting. 

But bad because that means there is a plethora of topics that I would like to comment upon, and in general those comments tend to be less than complimentary.

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So, is it enough?

My primary reference is to the protests that have occurred, and will continue to occur as long as this administration continues to enact immoral, and just plain cruel policies.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer an electorate that assembles every once in a while to vent, to express their dissatisfaction, to commune in their mutual dislike about the direction that Trump is taking us. And, while I would also prefer that those with the most, the super rich class, would grow a spine and put America before their personal wealth, I know not to hold my breath waiting for people to reign in their selfishness when it is that very trait that has enabled them to become so rich. 

So, while at least there is a faction of America that sees how Trump and his philosophy of selfishness belies our alleged Judaeo-Christian values, it seems crystal clear to me that walking around with clever signs is not going to change much.

In other words, sacrificing a few hours on a weekend is not enough if we want real change.

So, what will make a difference?

Of course, voting is a start. Remember, America does not vote in overwhelming numbers. In the last presidential election, less people voted than in 2020 as a percentage of eligible voters, although there has been an increase in voter turnout since 1988. Here is a link to some interesting info concerning the difference between Americans who are eligible to vote (Voter Eligible Population or VEP) and registered voters, and actual people who voted. As you can see if you access this link, even our best election, 2020, only resulted in 65.3% of the voter eligible people to vote. Pretty sad. 

https://www.factsoverfeelings.org/pages/us-voting-data.html

The silver lining of these low numbers is that we are, as a nation, becoming more politically connected and active, but since the bar was so low coming out of the 1980's, that number is still shockingly low.

The reasons for our lack of civic responsibility require another post. Obstacles to a higher VEP are not hard to discern, and, unfortunately, we are seeing an increase in attempts to stifle voter participation, due, primarily, to Trump's big lie about voter fraud. 

What is really stark from the Presidential Candidate Performance Summary which is part of the link I provided, is the actual percentage of VEP attained by each presidential candidate since 1988. I point this out to provide proof of another of Trump's many lies about elections, his oft stated "I won in a landslide" rhetoric which will often include the phrase "like no one has ever seen".

A quick check of that Summary, demonstrated that the best performance in terms of popular vote since 1988 was Bush 1 in 1988, followed by Obama in 2008, Biden in 2020, Obama again in 2012 then Bush 2 in 2004, all of whom earned over 50% of the popular vote. Of the 20 candidates listed in that chart, they are the only candidates to surpass the 50% mark. Trump's 2024 mark of 49.8% puts him 6th. 

As for the percentage of VEP for those 20 candidates, only one candidate received more than 33% of the actual eligible voters, Joe Biden in 2020. In other words, all of the last ten presidents were voted for by 1/3 or less of the eligible voters in America, due to a woeful percentage of eligible people who actually vote, and the closeness of the races.

In other words, there is no such thing as a presidential mandate, so anyone telling you otherwise is ignorant of the numbers, or lying.

So, while I certainly encourage Americans to, A) register to vote and B) actually vote, and while I certainly disagree with the current trend to make it harder to vote whether by eliminating or restricting early voting, mail in voting, etc, I am hesitant to believe that voting is the answer to our problems.

Although it does point out a symptom; our seeming nonchalance in exercising our precious right to vote. 

But it is more than that. Even those who vote do so with less concern for America than with selfish motives, and/or a focus on one issue. 

Rather than evaluating a candidate on their overall platform, many voters focus on one issue and vote for that candidate, regardless of whether the other priorities of that candidate make life better for them. Even worse, we frequently only vote for a candidate that promises better outcomes for ourselves and our families, whether those outcomes improve life for the majority of Americans or not.

This is especially true for those whom the current system has benefited the most; the super rich. 

It amazes me that everyday Americans who struggle to balance their checkbooks, provide for their children, save for a comfortable retirement, also defend the super rich who offshore vast sums of money to avoid paying taxes, use a myriad of tax loopholes (which they helped write through their "donations"), to pay a minuscule percentage of taxes, and generally use and abuse those very same working class people by squashing attempts to unionize, to gain a livable wage, to have health insurance, to garner even a sliver of the profits that these super rich individuals and corporations are "earning". 

It has never been as clear as it is in this exact moment that Wall Street is a totally different world from main street. While the rest of us are experiencing the highest energy costs since the start of Russia's invasion into Ukraine, not to mention the tight labor market which is being exacerbated by large corporation layoffs, those very same "titans of industry" are racking up record compensation packages while paying even less taxes. All the while, bending the knee to the wannabe king in the White House.

But that is the big rub. The stark separation between the haves and have nots is being widened, significantly, by one identifier; having investments. If you don't have an IRA or some type of money in the stock market, you have a much smaller chance at financial security, now and in retirement. But if you do, you are contributing to the very same system that is driving the divide.

Don't get me wrong, I am part of the problem as well. While my wife and I attempt to direct our investments into companies and industries that do not manufacture or sell weapons, that are not involved in fossil fuels, we do have AI investments such as NVIDIA, Google, Alphabet.

I feel good that we sold our Amazon stock after Bezos' complete sell out, and we do not buy anything from Amazon, yet we are still supporting men and corporations who are actively inventing ways to eliminate jobs, and who kiss up to the president so he will suppress legislation that might control the inevitable cycle of more automation, less workers.

But, as long as our quarterly statements reflect growth, we seem willing to let our drive to the future be controlled by people who, while brilliant, seem to also have loss some humanity.

It is not enough to spend a few hours on the odd weekend waving at passing cars while holding a No Kings sign. 

It is not enough to complain about the direction of our government yet not research the candidates and be an educated voter.

It is not enough to rail against the rich while the Prime truck stops at your house three times a week.

It is not enough to separate your own personal investments from the reality of who is hurting, who is gaining, by those investments.

It is not easy to live in this world, to want the best for yourself and your family, while being cognizant of how your desire for happiness may reduce the happiness of others.

Is it too late to go back to the days of small businesses dotting the streets of one's city or town, a day when shopping at these places also meant chatting with a neighbor, or someone whose kid played on your own child's sports team? Perhaps.

But it is not too late to seek out small businesses, brick and mortar or online. To stay away from the big box stores who have put all those small businessmen out of work.

It is not too late to understand where your investment money is going, and how those companies treat their employees and the environment.

It is not too late to understand how your news sources evaluate the news they present, how they fact check. 

And it is certainly not too late to go beyond the words of those we elected to lead our country and analyze their actions, the policies they support, the laws the approve, the push back they demonstrate under the pressure of big money donors. 

We have gotten so far away from "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", it is startling. 

But more than that, we seem to have forgotten what will make our country better. We seem lost in the Make America Great Again slogan but have surrendered our ability to distinguish between what made us great to begin with, and how we define greatness in the first place.

 

  

     

 

 

The Sign from God

The day started like any other day. People all over the planet awakened to the sun rise, sent their kids off to school, went to work, walked for their daily water, logged onto their computers, made love to their partners, prayed for strength to get through another day.

Nations too, in the form of their leaders, their policies, their laws, greeted the new day, some with proclamations against their global neighbors, some to detail a natural disaster, how many died, how many missing, some to condemn the actions of their own citizenry, and to name the names of those who needed to be purged.

For better or worse, it would be the last day that began in that fashion.

-------------------------

Millions of miles away, so far away that their existence was unknown to the inhabitants of that planet, a conference was about to end. The attendees had reviewed the troves of information that had been gathered about that planet, called Earth by its inhabitants, a name which came into use only 1500 or so years in the past, a mere blink of an eye in terms of the age of the species of the men who lived there, not to mention as compared to the age of the planet itself.

Earth, which derived from words used to convey dirt or soil which themselves indicated an understood difference between the solid ground below and the heavens above.

A primitive understanding for a primitive species, yet a species that had developed exponentially in terms of its technological advances, its ability to escape its atmosphere, and had begun a rudimentary exploration of the skies. 

As the attendees of this gathering were reminded, along with the spark of ingenuity that had been implanted there all those centuries ago, the true nature of life's purpose was also embedded through a similar spark as provided by a number of teachers whose lessons were used to create manuals from which guidelines were distilled into simple instructions, simple enough for even a species still in the early stages of their evolution.

Sadly, like many other species, far too many had institutionalized the lessons of the teachers by creating organizations that used those lessons to control rather than inspire, for material gain rather than spiritual advancement. 

So now, as had been done for millennia, a decision had to rendered. 

To intervene.

But more critically, how to intervene, or to be more precise, which of the approved interventions to utilize.

While fierce, the debate was civil, as the participants understood the gravity of their decision, and the responsibility that generations of their ancestors had placed into their hands.

And while the options were limited, the degree of each was varied so there needed to be consensus, not just on the overall action plan, but on the specific details of that choice.

In the end, compassion ruled the day, as it so often did with this conclave. But a compassion that included an alteration of the dynamics which drove the nations in their interactions with each other. A modification that would not be easy for those on Earth to accept, especially those who governed countries that had strayed the furthest from the main principle, the universal principle, that had been revealed via the most spiritually advanced of the Earthlings.

------------------

Sometime around mid afternoon on the continent they called Europe, the first effects of the intervention were felt. There had been an ongoing conflict on that continent between two neighboring countries whose populations had far more in common than not. It was at the various fronts of this conflict that the weapons stopped working, from the most powerful missiles to the smallest of hand guns. Suddenly, nothing that could be used to injure or kill another person could be fired. 

As news spread in all geographic directions, nations as disparate as those where the sun was most strongest thereby creating a darker version of the species, to the most powerful one which was currently engaged in destroying small boats as they left the shores of a far less powerful nation, suddenly faced the prospect that all the munitions they had accumulated were now useless.

That might makes right was no longer a viable philosophy.

As was the custom, time to process this new development was afforded. Those on Earth were unaware that this time was part and parcel to the ultimate decision, since how a species employed the time dictated the final step of the intervention. The fact that there were influential voices on Earth which interpreted the elimination of the power of weapons as the possibility that this was divine in nature, amused, but did not factor into the group's deliberations.

The polar opposite of so many of the depictions of the end times which so often included mass death and destruction brought on by man's folly, the prospect that this event, this rendering of weapons as useless, might be the divine intervention that was anticipated, even longed for by those so arrogant to believe that they were among those to be "saved", also amused the members of the conclave, but only so far as an indicator that this species was similar to so many in its interpretation of what was occurring. The final decision was already coming into focus.

At first, those in charge of the great nations who had most enjoyed the privilege of might makes right, experienced denial that the impotence of weapons was real. Some actually fired those in military positions as if it was their fault, and that somehow a new general or cabinet level department head might change reality. Many pointed fingers at their perceived global enemies, which, oddly, seemed to admit that those enemies were so much more powerful and militarily advanced despite the trillions of dollars that had been spent in the past few years to prevent just such an occurrence.

Anger also rose to the surface, anger that the rules of the past where the strong always ruled, were suddenly undercut. Again, a response not unexpected, not outside the range of responses that had been provoked in the past with other nascent species.

Soon, but not as soon as had been witnessed with other species, acceptance of this new reality was faced. While the various religious institutions debated the meaning of what was certainly divine intervention, there was grudging acceptance that a more powerful force was at work. 

Proof of God.

There were some, especially those who had used religion for profit and power, who attempted to twist this new reality to their advantage, but in general, Earth's inhabitants slowly began to come together, to begin thinking with a global perspective rather than with a national or ethnic, or racial viewpoint. 

There was a peace, if you will, although some of the world's leaders, especially those who led the countries which had been the most powerful, had spent the most resources on war (although they called it "defense"), who shook the hands of their counterparts and smiled for the cameras, some of those leaders convened behind closed doors to discuss plans which would guarantee that their vision of this new reality would win the day. Even in this position of weakness, they plotted to hold all the cards.

Is a peace born of mutual dread of an external threat as valid as one which emanates from a spiritual awakening? 

Can a plan which merges disparate cultures, values, priorities to reduce, perhaps even eliminate violence as the overriding tool to tout one's superiority, be judged the same as one which espouses an elimination of violence through mutual respect, even if its success masks the real intention of those concocting it? 

Of course, the members of the conclave, present and past, had vast experience with the myriad of reactions that such interventions provoked, could tell which were steeped in honesty and integrity, and which hid secret plans within plans. But still, they waited, gave h]the Earthlings time to adapt to their new reality.

And then, as pre-determined by the conclave, the weapons came alive as suddenly as they had ceased to function. 

The head secretary of the sub committee formed after the initial conclave, noted the day and time, then closed the book on Earth. There would be one more entry, sometime in the future, depending on how the inhabitants of Earth responded to regaining the power of their weapons. 

That entry would note the beginning of a new reality for Earth's people, the start of a journey where they would be recognized as a community within the universe's alliance of species which had disavowed violence, which had finally learned the lessons bestowed on them by their own advanced spiritual masters, themselves inspired by the Force which provided that spark of spirituality for all species.

Or, and this was at best a 50-50 possibility, the last entry would mark the destruction of this iteration of the inhabitants of Earth. Not because there would be a purging of humanity through an edict of the conclave, but because that was the inevitable fate for an species that did not learn the lesson, did not heed the warning that the use of weapons, and the philosophy of might makes right, always ends in self destruction.     

----

As a rule, I don't believe that humans are all that perceptive when it comes to recognizing divine intervention. Frankly, I don't believe in it, but were I to put any credence to whether there is an Almighty presence in the universe that intervenes in the events of the planet, let alone one person out of eight billion, I would bet that humanity would not recognize what were actual intercessions. 

And, if there was a consensus that an action was divine in nature, as many believed in the above story, I doubt it would be interpreted properly.

A case in point is climate change. All the data is there. All the signs from nature or God are screaming at us, the once in a lifetime weather disasters that seem to occur every year, the record heat, the dramatic swings in temperature, the ever increasing instances of wild fires, droughts, massive storms. 

Perhaps all of those events are indications that God is warning us to do better, yet are ignored by so many, whether that ignorance is tied to protecting the status quo which has benefited a minority at the expense of the majority, avarice above all, or whether it belies the fact that many Earthlings talk a good talk about believing in a god but don't believe in a judgement that goes beyond earthly possessions, as if your seat in heaven is determined by how many toys you have, not by one's humanity.

If so questioned, I might even conjecture that COVID was an intervention by God. Certainly there is a wide-spread belief in the story of Noah, and how God washed the Earth clean of those who did not believe, saving Noah, his family and a pair of each animal species. While I am fine with the Noah story as a lesson in faith, I don't believe it is real history. 

Which makes the idea that the COVID pandemic which killed over 8 million people across the globe, could have been sent our way by God as a warning. Or perhaps as an opportunity for everyone on Earth to unite, to act as one to reduce the spread, reduce the death. 

As it turned out, we couldn't even do that in America, let alone across the globe. 

Were there some who considered COVID a divine intervention, perhaps a punishment for turning our backs on the Almighty? Yes.

Sadly, many of them used the disease as a way to separate us, to blame COVID on certain people for their behavior, or skin color, or even their version of religion. 

So again, a chance for unity was destroyed by those who only wish to use god as a way to control, to accumulate power, to tell us who to hate.   

To be brutally honest, I am certain that if Jesus came back today, were there stories of a virgin birth emanating from the middle East, and a man who claimed to be the Son of God, stories of his sermons, possible miracles, his goodness, his compassion for the less fortunate, he would be treated even worse than he was 2000 years ago. And could you imagine if God decided to send his daughter this time?

No, signs from God, even if they exist, would have no chance at being interpreted today as the real deal. 

That being said, this is not the first story I have written where Earth experiences an external intervention, or is united through the belief that an extraterrestrial force requires all countries to band together. 

Over 15 years ago, I wrote a story called The Archives which described a society that had achieved a level of global peace through a lie. A story in which the powers to be understood that without an external, planet wide threat, Earth would never be united. And so they created one. Here is a link to that story.

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2010/06/archives.html 

Then, about seven and a half years ago, I wrote a story in which there is a perceived divine intervention. A switch in which a percentage of Earthlings suddenly wake up to find they are a different gender and/or race than when they went to sleep. 

Here is a link to that story, The Switch Back 

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-switch-back.html 

Perhaps, in the end, it doesn't matter if our species ever evolves past the use of violence as a conflict remediation tool. Only that individuals do so. Which may mean the "the meek shall inherit the earth" is more about the next life than the present one.