Where is America?

Last fall I started to write an article after talking with Al about how bad the economic situation of my hometown (the Miami Valley-- Dayton, Ohio & vicinity) had got. The following is that article which I never finished... because  I couldn't. I hope it serves some happy end as I try to close it now.

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Where is America?

My friend has been working on this very big and important project, and I have been pissing and moaning over here on the homefront, so my friend says I should write about what I am witnessing here, instead of crying. But the thing is, I actively sought out the source of my pain so I could tell all about it, and now I can hardly stop crying enough to keep streams of tears out of my keyboard.

Barack Obama is coming to Dayton on Friday. I think he wants to talk about churches and charity or something equally irrelevant to the urgent situation citizens of the Miami Valley are in as thousands and thousands of jobs continue to leave the area. 250,000 jobs left Ohio during the presidential primary elections, according to Steve Graham, who is a contract negotiator at the machinists and aerospace workers’ union, IAMAW.  Steve used to work with my uncle Ron at a company here that makes chemical agitators, which are like enormous mixers for industry. When Steve was there almost 200 men worked there, but now less than 100 work there. My uncle Ron never left that job, but as long as I can remember he has worried he wouldn’t have a job because the company’s been bought and sold and contracts have come and gone. When I was a girl he would say please just let me get my time in… so I can retire.

My uncle Ron has just nearly got his time in now. After 33 years of service to the company, at age 54, he can retire. His pension is $41.50/ mo for every year of service which comes to less than $1400/ mo. He is granted $100 for himself and $100 for his wife each month for medical allowance. Unfortunately, the medical policy he carries, an 80/20 plan which doesn’t include eye care or dental care, will cost him $1300/ month for him and my aunt Shelley. So, he’s pretty sure he isn’t going to actually retire anytime too soon. He has given this some thought: he will be eligible for social security at the age of 66 1/2. He can take it early with an actuarial reduction at the age of 62. Since most working men only actually collect an average of 17 social security checks, he would likely collect more money if he opted for the early pay out. Most working men only collect their checks for a year and a half because that’s all the longer they live after retirement. Anyway, my uncle is looking at almost ten more years of working… and that of course is only if the shop stays open & he doesn’t get sick or hurt in the meantime. His knees are bad, his lower back is weak, his wrists are weak from so many years of very physically demanding work—lifting steel, swinging a hammer 1000 times a day, banging and pounding and standing on concrete. On top of the stress of the job itself, the mental and physical stress and toll they take on a body, there is, too, the worrying that the doors will close and there will be no more work.

When I was in my late 20’s I was visiting my ex-husband’s family in Mexico, and I had been told that I had something wrong with me. I was told I had “espanto” which roughly translates to residual trauma. We arranged with an old woman who lived around the corner to treat my problem with a ritual in which I was stripped naked and sat outside in the sun while the old woman “Chonchis” rubbed me with a brew of an herb called epazote. She then spit grain alcohol all over my back and chest and arms. She took drinks from the plastic bottle and spit them at me. I was left to sit in the sun until I started to sweat and then I was wrapped in a heavy wool blanket and taken into the cool dark house to stay for 20 hours while I sweated out the trauma. Chonchis had said the time of year wasn’t best; the sun wasn’t hot enough. But we were only going to be in town for a short visit, so we went through with the treatment anyway. I didn’t sweat as hard or as long as was prescribed, but I got the idea. And over the years I learned intuitively what was meant by “espanto” and how residual trauma affects a life, by creating a kind of barrier between a person and others, by making a sort of gulf of un-resolved emotion or undigested experience.

The alienation that people find themselves in as a result of the traumas and insecurities they go through make collective movements difficult to impossible. People focus on their own selves and problems without consciousness of their being in the same boat as families all around them. I haven’t studied psychology, but my intuition and experience show me that this is true. Apparently there have been times, though, when Americans didn’t feel like they were disjointed the way they seem to feel now. While it’s fairly obvious that across racial and social lines people have rarely come together  in lasting ways, they have come together for times, and they could come together again.  

Photographs of workers training and working on the Tennessee Valley Authority and Civilian Conservation Corps, as part of the New Deal, show men and boys working with hope and dignity. The New Deal benefitted Appalachian people more than other populations, but what a great effort and opportunity to work creating beautiful and useful waterways and roads that would serve the whole of society. What is needed now is a New New Deal, one that would give work to people of all colors and origins right here at home, maintaining and creating new infrastructures for our communities. New energy works, regular road developments and expansions and maintenance… these would provide work and income and long-term benefits to our country.

Just a Little Talk with Jesus

My mother’s family worshipped in a Free-will Baptist church until my pa’apaw died four and a half months after retiring from G.M., and then my family stopped going to church, even on holidays. The church we had gone to was built by my pa’apaw and his brother among others. My great uncle was our preacher. Both brothers had come from a holler outside of Lucasville, Ohio called Duck Run. My great uncle worked for Delco, and my pa’apaw worked for Inland (GM). When they came here, they knew the jobs they were taking would carry them till retirement age, and after that they would live the good life that their father who was a widower was not able to give them. Mostly, they knew that in the sweet by-and-by, they would be rewarded with life at the hand of God. A sense of hope and love lived in our homes. The harmonies of the hymns we sang filled my grandparents’ house all week when after work my pa’apaw whistled and sang.

I Saw the Light

Rank Strangers

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OK this is me today again, tonight, April 30 which happens to be my uncle Ron's 55th birthday.

I didnt finish writing this last fall & quit abruptly because I lost my cool; my emotions got in the way of the degree of objectivity I started out with. I hope one day that wont so easily happen, but meantime, I decided to force myself back out into public debate, raw as it is.

Maybe at times we become defensive, & this no doubt draws from our effectiveness as writers and activists. But, there are times when it is necessary to defend & also to offend. Eventually I will finish the story of what it means to me to put personal happiness off till the next plane, sacrificing it to the greater happiness of the group.  For now, I'd like to grieve publicly for my uncle & for my pa'apaw & for my fellow Miami Valley-ans & for my children & for myself. We didnt choose this life, but now we try to find a way to make it as good a life a

Please, please, remember that when some take it hard, no matter whether in the heartland or in Iraq or in Colombia or wherever, we all must feel defensive somewhat. If I try to list all the names, I list us all. It is time to recognise out loud that advantage for few makes strife.

Thank you.

Amy Casada