The year we stole a Christmas tree.
Things were booming in Central Pennsylvania, as I like to say "Coal was King", and my Dad had worked his way from dozer operator to foreman. He had a company truck and gas and was making about $35,000 a year (1980 $s). The house we lived in was paid for as far as I can recall, we vacationed at Disney World, spent the summers and Easter in Benson and Wrightsville, and Christmas was spectacular.
We had a tradition that started in those years of going out to a nearby tree farm, walking through the woods and rows of trees looking for just the right one. We even got to the point where we could afford those big, beautiful, blue spruce trees and still to this day I consider THAT a Christmas tree. My mom was nuts about Christmas, we had tinsel on the tree, every ornament we'd ever made, garland up the banister, the stockings were hung with care, a Santa outside upon whose plastic list my mom had written the names of every kid in our town - you get the picture. Christmas was magic, pure magic, the whole season. The cookies, the pies, the cakes, the turkey, ham, nutbread with cream cheese. Uh, it was awesome.
It's Christmastime
There's no need to be afraid
At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade
And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime
Until we stole that Christmas tree.
Eventually, in Pennsylvania, the blue-collar economy disappeared. The steel mills shut down and with it much of the demand for coal went away. Natural gas, oil, and electric heat replaced the ever present coal furnace and the site of piles of coal stacked against the sides of houses also went away. The mines began to cut back, and eventually they shut down. (Why that lead to a decade-long hatred of unions is another story that I have written about here) When the mines shut down, times were tough. There had been other slow-downs, I was too young to remember but have heard the stories of how my dad was laid off for 4 months one year. There were no other jobs and there was talk of the layoffs ending, so he did what he could, he got up every morning and walked a huge loop through the forest hunting for dinner. But, this time it was different. There was a kid in college, another kid soon to leave for college, and another kid in junior high. And, there was no hope. Hope was lost in Central PA for those coal miners because the mine was gone, shuttered, empty, all the equipment auctioned off. Bye.
My recollection isn't perfect, but what I remember is that it took my dad quite awhile to find any work and when he did it was selling tires. I remember hearing later that he earned a whopping $5000 that year selling tires, in addition to whatever unemployment he had collected. I don't know if we had health insurance, I doubt it, the mines had always paid for that. These were the times that we discovered "generic" food, which only I seem to remember, but it was a white labeled food with big black letters saying things like "Potato Chips". I remember one day we got a big block of cheese and I was so excited and couldn't figure out why no one else was, we all loved cheese. I didn't know it was "welfare cheese", I just liked cheese.
Then, it was Christmas time. Before I go any further, I need to tell you about this piece of land that was out near one of the strip mines. It was owned, supposedly, by a church in Philadelphia - about 5 hours away. It had been posted no trespassing, no hunting, and such but over time the signs had faded away and/or fallen away. Still, people were polite enough to walk into the woods adjacent before cutting back into the prime bottom land for good deer hunting. For the years that the adjacent property was being mined, no one ever saw a soul come and visit that property, and the mine ran 24/7. Once upon a time, that church had planted a bunch of Christmas trees and each December they would pack up in cars and bring a dump truck to the land. There, the kids would run around, they would eat a picnic lunch, and cut down that year's Christmas trees. But, the trees were gone and no one had seen the Christmas caravan in years.
Well, MOST of the trees were gone. What was left was the second generation trees, scrubby, untrimmed, wild pine trees. THIS, is where we went for our Christmas tree that year. We parked on the adjacent land and hiked down into the bottoms with our handsaw in tow. We looked and looked and finally found our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. My memory fails me here, but I seem to think it wasn't even a pine tree, it was a hemlock - I could be wrong. Either way, it was quickly dispatched and drug back to the pickup.
When we got it home, I was never so embarrassed. It had huge bald spots, it was two feet too tall, so we lopped it off and were left with a flat-top Christmas tree, some branches were twice as long as others so we trimmed them back. It was awful, did I mention I was embarrassed? Well, I was young enough that I wasn't very good at hiding my feelings and instead of being thankful - I was pissy.
I didn't want my friends to come over and see this tree and I certainly didn't want to decorate it. So, my mom and dad went about the business of decorating the tree and hanging lights while I grumbled, pissed, and moaned. When the tree was done, I was astonished. My mom had turned that tree into....well, Christmas. Lights, popcorn and cranberry strings, every decoration we kids had ever made, my favorite elves. She had artfully filled in holes with large ornaments and you know what, that hemlock-looking Christmas tree was beautiful. On Christmas day, things were lean. I remember getting a lot of things from Value City. Shoes from Payless, back when they sold real, imitation, pleather shoes. I remember socks, underwear, a pair of pants with the pockets sewed shut (irregulars they were called, 50% off). I'm sure there was a game in there somewhere, but I don't remember what it was. What I remember most was my mother saying over and over again how sorry she was that there wasn't much this year and my dad looking pissed. Dad never gets sad, he gets pissed. Pissed at the world for opening trade with China and Japan (back then, Japanese cars in Pittsburgh were often "misplaced" into the furnaces), pissed at the coal mines for closing, at himself for leaving the Army after Vietnam (he could have been retiring with a full pension at the time). I tried to make the best of it, to be extra excited about the things I received, and to hope they liked the small gifts I was able to give them in return. Mom and Dad gave each other a kiss that year, that's all.
Things got better, things are good for my family now, even though we did skimp and get a bit of a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree this year (50% off), we accomplished what our parents wanted. We're all better off than they were.
Now, living in North Carolina, I get to see this happen all over again. Somewhere in North Carolina there are two parents sitting down wondering how they are going to do Christmas now that the mill has closed, the unemployment has run out, and they're making $8.50/hour at McDonald's or Wal-Mart. Some of those people might take it upon themselves to venture into the Christmas tree farms of Western North Carolina and look for that Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. I'll never forget what that was like. Never. I live in a nice, expensive house, in the most expensive neighborhood in most of North Carolina. We drive a new Honda minivan. We bought our kids WAY too many gifts this year. But.
I. Will. Never. Forget.
It's because of this history, this memory, that I support a man with a similar life story for President. I support John Edwards. He has a $5 Million house? Great. He's worth millions? Great. He was also raised in a poor mill village, then his family worked hard and moved up in the world, into middle management. Just like my dad, who eventually went on to manage a logging equipment and supply company. That's what is supposed to happen if you work hard. But.
You. Never. Forget.
Some people question John Edwards focus on poverty, his focus on universal health care. I question why it took so long and I have my answer. Senator Edwards has said that in his last run he was worried too much about how he looked as a candidate, how his speeches sounded, how his ideas "fit" the campaign. As he famously said in his New York Times Op-Ed, "I was wrong." And, he was. Maybe he did forget, for just a little while, what it was really like in that mill village. But, he's back there now, and isn't that the important thing? He wants to win, badly. Why? What's he fighting for?
He's fighting for people who don't have a voice, because Washington only listens to one thing, money.
He's walking picket lines because the loss of unions meant the loss of the middle class.
He's offering college for everyone, because he and I both know that it's a leg-up on getting out of poverty.
He's mandating universal health care, because he knows that at any time a person's whole life could be ruined by a bad fall or a faulty pool drain.
I'll never forget what it meant to grow up "blue-collar" and I'm sick to death of leaders who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, who have Harvard and Yale law degrees on their walls, and who claim to "understand the issue" of poverty. It's time for a real American to lead America, back from the politics of creating wealth to the politics of creating a better life for the next generation. Remember that, remember the American Dream? That we will leave our children with a better world and a better future than the one we inherited? This seems to be the only inheritance that Republicans believe in taxing.
Your time is almost up, your time to decide on the best candidate to fight the powers-that-be in Washington and move us back towards the New Deal Society that we deserve.
Don't wait, your voice can still be heard in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.
In the absence of a unified Iraqi government,
I'm not sure what any President could do, regardless of party, ideology or determination.
And there are some quite serious socio-religious roadblocks hindering unification. It could be that balkanization is inevitable, in which case a future U.S. President's greatest contribution could be to not try to hold a greater Iraq together.
edwards addresses poverty in the US
very well.
What I don't hear is how he is going to help Iraqis recover from our destruction of their country and their lives. They are faced with poverty too - and much, much worse than poverty.
dancewater
http://dancewater.blogspot.com
http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com
http://facesofgrief.blogspot.com
A belated thought
Robert,
Thank you very much for sharing this. I was lucky enough that, while my parents hit some lean times, it never really got very bad. I still have stories, though, of my grandmother dragging my dad downtown to "window shop," which was so that she could see what the styles in the windows were, then go home and try to reproduce the designs for the kids' clothes out of scrap cloth.
But more than that, I guess you could say that you've, well, explained the Edwards phenomenon for me. In an exchange with an old college roommate recently as we tried to decide how to support, I expressed again how mystified I was that Edwards was seen as some kind of progressive champion. I mean, come on, the guy ran as a strict DLC centrist in 1998, voted for the Iraq war, for NCLB, and at a time when being progressive felt like a lonely, lost endeavor, he was almost completely quiet. I simply couldn't understand why he'd become such a phenomenon on DailyKos and here.
Your story here, and how Edwards resonates with you so deeply, not only explains that, but, not to be nasty, but, well, heightens my respect for Edwards supporters. I kept slipping into thinking of y'all as either Johnny-come-latelys to politics, or folks who couldn't be bothered into paying attention. All of the non-presidential stuff here said otherwise, but I couldn't shake it. This did.
Functionally, it didn't change a whole lot. I still have strong questions about Edwards' judgment, and his vision of effective politics is rather different than mine. I'll fully support him in the general should he win the nomination, but that was true beforehand. I guess what it does change is, should that happen, I think I'll feel a little better about it. And my esteem of you, as a writer and a political thinker, is considerably higher. (And it was not low before hand.)
I gave you a shout out
on Kos ...
1 Thessalonians 5:21: But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
Did you delete it?
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Yup, long story ...
1 Thessalonians 5:21: But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
If you want to know who "bloggers" are...
go read the comments on Daily Kos. What an incredible group of people.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Considering the gut response this diary has received, Robert,
it would be a travesty if all of America did not get an opportunity to read this. I suggest contact with AP, Reuters, McClatchy, and anyone else of importance and let them have a look at the story you wrote and let them know about the reactions.
I've read through the comments again this early morning on DKos, and it is amazing. This may be the story America needs to share right now.
Do what you feel is right. I feel that Americans need to understand what is at stake, and I think these words you've written will allow them to feel again, as well. I think most are in a daze after the last 7 years and need a wake up call. We need someone to help us citizens take back our country. JRE is what we need to start. Enough said.
North Carolina. Turning the South Blue!
Did you see this diary. You
Did you see this diary. You had quite an impact today Robert. Thank you.
Couldn't talk long on Kos today, sorry.
Your diary really hit me. It seems to me that we as a nation define poverty in terms that aren't always realistic. The economist class sets arbitrary definitions of what poverty is based on income and numbers of people in the family. That doesn't even come close to recognizing the millions and millions of families who are not technically impoverished, but by all practical applications of reality, going hungry. Hungry for food, hungry for medical care, hungry for the chance to make Christmas look nice for their family, hungry for a modicum of respect in a seemingly collapsing world.
I heard Mike Huckabee on NPR tonight on my way to pick up my grandson from a school function. He was comparing people who are struggling with the mortgage crises to people who go 95 mph in a car on icy roads. And THIS is mainstream Christian thought and application? What have we become? Very sad, very troubling.
Wonderful diary. Very hopeful. Very helpful.
I support John Edwards for President.
Thanks for posting this,
Thanks for posting this, Robert. Your story of how life can change so drastically puts a personal face on poverty, sometimes it's not easy to share those things. And imagine - that Christmas you stole a tree, you still had a house to take it back to. I know that there were many whose house wasn't paid for, and who struggled to pay the mortgage. I also know a lot of folks from Central and Western PA who left to go to the oilfields in the Southwest, even though their families had been in PA for - well, forever.
If we learn anything from personal memories and stories like this, it must be that as a nation we have a responsibility to ensure that families don't face devastating poverty if we can help it.
I say as a nation because that is what I believe. We owe it to each other, I think, to be sure that everyone is safe, warm, well-fed, and well-educated. We owe it to each other to be sure that industries are prepared for the future. The collapse of steel and coal in Western PA and WV is a prime example of a region and an industry not being ready for the future. Thousands of trained, willing workers, and no work for them to do. And yet - had someone been thinking - really thinking - the coal belt might now be known as the solar belt, or the wind belt. (I have no idea how practical that is; it's just an example.)
We need leadership that recognizes this, and will work to make it happen. Like you, Robert, I believe that John Edwards is the leader that can make that happen. I have no issue with other Democrats running for president, and I will support whomever is selected in the primaries (probably). But Edwards has the vision and the track record of understanding poverty and its effect on society. We can be the generation that makes a huge difference. We can be the generation that eliminates it. If we have the right leadership.
Anyhow - thanks for writing this, Robert. The response on Kos was amazing and overwhelming!
Merry Christmas.:)
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
The deepest reason
I've heard for supporting anyone's candidacy ... you never forget. Thank you, Robert. I will never forget. And I hope and pray that my children will never forget.
________________________________________
"I have learned two great lessons in life ... One; that there will always be heartache and struggle; the other; that people of strong will can make a difference. One is a sad lesson; the other is an inspiration. I choose to be inspired." -- JRE
I read your comment on Daily Kos.
You were one of many who grew up with that "tradition".
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
I lived in PIttsburgh from 82 to 96
just as all the industry was dying, and the economy was changing. My ex's family tells stories of it being so dark at noon that you had to use headlights in downtown Pittsburgh, and that when children went out to play, they came back almost as filthy as the coal miners themselves because of the soot. But no one complained, because it meant the mills were working - and that was good.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
In the mid 1970s
I remember going to see a pirates game and passing miles of steel plants with the smoke and soot rolling into the air. As time went by and the yearly trek to the Pirates game came and went, so did the plants. Now, the entire stretch is strip malls and park & rides.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Stupid Tubes
My first comment got eaten.
My family was from the same part of the county. My Dad grew up in Slippery Rock, my mom grew up in Pittsburgh. While my dad's family doesnt have the same stories; he was lucky enough to have a teacher for a mom and a principal for a dad, things were still never easy.
I will always remember driving around Western PA with my great grandfather when I was in elementary school. He was about 90 at the time, and was telling my dad all the family stories he could manage to, and showing us the old houses. We pulled up to an empty field and he became very confused. He had no idea what had happened, because he had remembered a house being where we were. He was a person who never forgot anything, and always knew every road out there. After a few minutes of wondering we finally figured it out. The house where he grew up in, the farmhouse that had stood for close to a century, had been strip mined.
Thanks for the diary Robert.
"Keep the Faith"
Please head over for Recs.
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One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Sirrah!
Delightful message, wonderfully conveyed, and very persuasive.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing
-Edmund Burke
Central PA blue Collar jobs disappearing
You got that right. In my home town, Pennsylvania House has since closed up and is now an empty building where they once made the finest furniture in the world.
Last I heard, they were trying to make the International Paper plant into a grocery store, if that hasn't happened already. JPM, a cable manufacturer, became known to the locals as "the Enron of Central PA."
Now whenever I go home I get depressed. The town has become a sprawling community of strip malls upon strip malls. The real jobs are gone and the real people are leaving.
I also think the perfect song for you to listen to this year is "They don't have Christmas in Kentucky" - Phil Ochs. It's all about the hardship suffered by the Kentucky and West Virginia coal miners.
Yeah, it is depressing.
The houses where many of my friends grew up are now condemned. There are still a few newly-painted, well-maintained houses here and there. But, all in all, the town has lost its will to live. Actually, I should say they had lost it, but it is coming back. My sister organizes an easter egg hunt each year where over 100 kids from around the area come to participate. For awhile they did a big bonfire each January with everyone's Christmas trees. They are trying to keep it alive.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
My town...
managed to avoid the condemnations of houses and the fates of Ashland, Shamokin, etc. It had shifted its economy away from manufacturing very early. It is still has a large agricultural base, but now it has become in many senses a commuter village. People who worked as far away as Harrisburg and even New Jersey moved their families there for the better schools and the quaintness of the community. The United States Penitentiary (where Jim Black currently lives) is still one of the largest employers. The university still brings in the money. My town which once was a mixture of Agriculture, Blue Collar, and white collar is now agriculture, white collar, service industry. It just doesn't feel right.
People in my area commuted too....
to D.C. to build houses. They would live there Monday-Friday, 10 to a 1 bedroom apartment.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
I love this story
I absolutely love this.
You don't forget. I remember what it was like sharing a room with my brothers. I remember Christmas stockings filled with fruit and nuts, not candy and toys. I know now that I was lucky to have the stocking no matter what it was filled with at the time. I remember mom stretching the meals. My parents worked hard. Both of them. I might have been young, but I haven't fogotten. I know John Edwards hasn't forgotten either.
Thank you for this wonderful post.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
If the world could be run by people who KNEW, it would be better
My wife and I were recently talking about single-moms. How do they do it? One thing is they really reach out to the community more than two-parent families, this is something we would like to do more of. Like the other day, a friend was out of town, his wife had a project dumped in her lap at the last minute, so we took their kids after school, brought them home, fed them dinner, and hung out until bedtime.
That is just how it is supposed to be, a better community.
People who have been THERE know what it is like to need a helping hand, but paradoxically, are also probably less willing to ask for help.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A little bit of a different holiday message.
I don't think I can explain any better why I am pro-Edwards. Why I am anti-corporate Democrats would seem, to me, obvious.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon