By Mickey Walker - March 15, 2009
The dire recent sales numbers from Ford, GM, and Chrysler
approaching 50% made me spill my coffee.
I had to withdraw in my mind to think about it all. So, in involuntary silence I drifted
back to a simpler time trying to make sense out of what remained of the world
as now I perceived it to be in March of 2009. Back when I was a lad in the 1940s and 1950s my mother made
all my shirts. Her bony bare foot
pedaled her antique Singer sewing machine to produce for me the most glorious
creations from the latest styles from Italy, France, and even New York
City. The store-bought shirts,
Macgregor’s and such, in a fancy men’s shop would cost over $10, and, in short,
we could not afford such extravagance. So Mom studied the cuts of the fine
shirts from the dusty sidewalk outside, looking through the store glass. Back at home, she duplicated these fine
shirts for me on her foot-driven sewing machine. Mom was an artist with passion and love in her eye.
I remember
wishing for a pair of expensive penny loafers in my early Junior High days in
Port Arthur, Texas. But alas, I
could only get the synthetic pair of painted beige penny loafers with white
foam soles that turned yellow with the walking. They were awful. That was
before the splendid imitations of today, and everybody knew and snickered
knowingly that I was just another one of the poor kids. Embarrassed, I tried to hide my shoes
under my desk so no one would see.
Jeff Hayes, a buddy in my band class, got a pair of expensive penny
loafers I would have killed to have, and he paraded around in them all day, and
I envied him, so I told Mom how desperately I wanted some shoes like his, and
she took me downtown on Proctor Street and bought me a pair of ox blood penny
loafers made by Jarmen. I knew
what with a new baby brother, Mom
did not have the money, but she took a chance on making me happy by doing
without and perhaps seeking the greater good of making a young boy happy. Mom splurged and bought me a new pair
of Levis, too, and paid no mind to the clerk who sighed deeply at the likes of
us invading his fancy store, but we didn’t care because we were on a mission of
improving my image and my social status which was something of higher
importance to me and the universe.
See, you had to have the new jeans with a Navy blue hue because faded
jeans weren’t cool back then. The
more faded they were told on you.
Only poor kids kept on wearing the faded ones that branded them as less
fortunate creatures on the social pyramid. The next morning I appeared with my new jeans and shoes,
feeling good about my world, and all the boys and girls noticed my new look and
smiled approvingly as if to certify that I had arrived and was more acceptable
as a human being, perhaps, more than before. I glowed.
As a boy my Dad used to tell me stories about the dignity of
man and how unions preserved that dignity through bargaining with companies for
higher wages and better working conditions. That was when Dad worked for Gulf Oil Corporation at the
Port Arthur, Texas Refinery. It
was then, too, that he taught me about money. He gave me a dollar a week to spend and a dollar to save at
the Gulf Credit Union downtown by the Post Office. Every Saturday I rode downtown with him to give the teller
my dollar to save, and she would write it down in my little book.
The days of March this year have been delightfully bright
yet crisp in my little patch of woods of Humble, Texas that border larger
clearings and streets and masses of humanity and far fewer animals than where I
live. Today I sat on my covered
deck, almost dreaming, feeling cocoon-like, yes, a bit protected from what has
happened to America and our way of living high with no money down and so much a
month. It was a far cry from the
world of when I was a boy before credit cards and President Bush who would lie
about weapons of mass destruction and spend us into the bowels of the earth to
where our National Debt is now over 15 trillion dollars. I tried to understand just what might
be valuable at this point and what is not. And what is left for us Americans who are trying to pick up
the pieces in the aftermath of the last 8 years. I live at the end of an alley in a house of 1940s vintage
that I have enjoyed fixing up, landscaping and enhancing for the last few
decades. It is private and at the
dead end of a long gravel road that passes another house I own (vacant) on the
main street. There are hawks and
doves and rabbits and squirrels all around, and huge Live Oaks sprawl in my
front yard and privately, I see no neighbors because “the woods are lovely,
dark and deep.” Only the mailman
and an occasional visitor ever ventures down my path.
Feeling a bit like Thoreau when I moved in, I paid only
$20,000 for a small structure of 750 square feet that I have grown to over
2,000 square feet with out-buildings.
The neighborhood is old and gives some of my friends the impression that
there be burglars down here and other felons to put me in peril, but in the 20
years I have lived here, nothing has been stolen from our house or from anybody
in the neighborhood that I know of.
I guess the crooks hit the fancier additions and subdivisions thinking
that they have money and us poor urchins in old Humble are pretty hard up.
Lately, that’s been proving to be untrue for many of the
fine, big houses have gone vacant from the economy even here near Houston where
jobs and wages still seem to lead the country because of oil.
When I moved here from our fancy house near Lake Houston, my
daughter almost cried. “Dad, are
we really that poor?” she
asked. I chuckled and reassured
her that I could live in a big house if I ever wanted to, but for now, I sought
economy and things of the spirit and of the wooded natural things all around me
in my new modest abode. And it was
nice to be able to pay cash. The
tradeoff was that I had to live in a less than exemplary neighborhood where
some of the older houses sagged while others were being “fixed up” as I was
doing. But such a neighborhood is
always a work in progress.
I want to make a statement.
Valuable things in our lives come not from the house where
we live nor the LG washers and dryers, the granite counters, nor the fine
motorcars in our garage. The things of value come from the heart. You can’t get a second mortgage on that
stuff. We know these truths, and
we knew them better as kids, but they still stand solid. I think maybe we just lost track in
pursuit of the expensive penny loafers before we had the money to buy them.
Everybody just wants to get on in this life. We want to raise our kids and have them
healthy, but protected with programs like SCHIPS in case catastrophe comes to
our door. We want the best for our
families, too, of origin and of late.
Bottom line we don’t want to hurt our neighbors or be hurt by careless
or misguided humans who we thought to be pulling with us for the common
good. The pocketbook difference
between Democrats and Republicans is the most deplorable consideration since
Jesus and Bhudda told us not to sweat the money, not to worry about our storage
bins for the accumulation of goods in our houses and compounds. We want and need fair wages for
our children, our nephews, and we need to be able to pursue happiness without
being thwarted by governments, wars, or other such societal monsters. We need good wages, not good wars.
Jack Elton, an old friend since DeQueen Elementary School in
Port Arthur has three fine daughters, Marilyn, Vickie, and Debbie. When they were growing up they needed
formal gowns for their school proms, and their old Pappy Jack (as they call
him) got a foot-pedaled Singer sewing machine and made them their senior prom
gowns. The store-bought ones were too expensive. When I first heard this story and how proud his girls were of
him, a tear came to remind me of the overwhelming rush of love of the people
who will make do to improvise to get loved ones the things in life that are
important, the things that bring smiles and hugs to the eye of the maker of
good things.
I think Barack Obama is a maker of good things, and I think
he values all Americans regardless of their bank accounts. He recently put his money where his
mouth is on tax breaks for those making under $250,000 a year and raising taxes
for those making more. His promise
of millions of new green energy jobs for Americans gives us hope. I hope we are on the right road. I must condition myself to believe that
Obama is the right man for the job.
And I believe, if needed, Obama would make formals for his own daughters
with a foot-pedaled Singer sewing machine if he needed to. 