America never was America the Beautiful

 

Someone told me that America needs to return to those good old days prior to Ronald Reagan. 

Actually that America prior to Ronald Reagan was not such a good deal for young working class men and women.  While it is true that America prospered as a nation,  We should not forget her ugly side.  Those were the years that I worked in a drapery factory.  Over 120 women slaved at machines and cutting tables, earning wage minimum of $1.25 and hour.  Women whose husbands had abandoned them and their children, leaving them destitute and often deep in debt.  Men who simply walked away and no one ever collected a single red cent of child support for their children. 

Red lining was a popular sport in my city of Seattle.  Remember that game?  Draw a red line showing which neighborhoods we would allow Negroes to live in. 

And most importantly, which ones they could never hope to live in. 

Those were the wonderful years during which we almost depleted the salmon, and nearly turned Puget Sound into a watery garbage dump.  Open garbage dumps burned the garbage sending heavy stinking smoke across the region.  I recall sitting in class at the University of Washington and the professor rushing to close windows to keep the sour, abrasive smell out. 

Seattle had its share of flop houses up and down Skidrow.  As I walked between my bus and my job I was constantly being accosted by shaky derelicts begging for a few dimes.  We had our China Town where the Chinks and Japs lived.  We had Garlic Gulch out south in Rainier Valley and in Renton, where the WOP's lived.  And we had Snooze Junction in Ballard to keep our Norsky folks together.  And of course women of all colors suffered.  We could not count my wife's income when we went house hunting.  "She could get pregnant you know".  She could not sign for any large ticket items without my permission.  The house was in my name, even though Washington did become a community property state.  Women's work was considered extra money in a household.  The little lady could spend it on fluffy stuff or help buy that cabin in the mountains or put enough aside for a super duper vacation.  This put a real hardship on single women, or especially single mothers. 

As a young white man, I wandered about Seattle freely.  This was not the case for young Black men, or Filipino men. 

The bar I used to frequent on weekends was a dump down on First Avenue.  It was mostly loggers and longshoremen.  Over half of them were native Americans.  A tough crowd where you'd better learn their language and mind their customs, if you wanted to be around Monday morning.  The native Americans lived in crummy, falling down old buildings along First Avenue.  The Seattle police walked the streets in pairs and sometimes by threes.  These were the old time cops.  Big, thick, burly men.  They gave no quarters and could break a knee with one quick rap of a night stick.  I sat with my cronies sucking up beer and dancing to the tinny music of a local Filipino band, and watched the action out front on the sidewalk.  These were good people.  But they were shoved about like dogs.  While the boys and girls around Frat Row drank and squabbled, they were seen as just sowing their wild oats.  But the drunk tank was full of native Americans and Negroes, picked up for drunken disorderly conduct. 

I could continue wandering along memory lane, through those wonderful bygone days.  But you get my point. 

The time I want America to return to is a day that has not yet arrived.  I dream of a day when all of those regular folks, the working class, the backbone of America, the abused and mistreated are finally free and respected and allowed to live where they choose, and work for equal pay at equal jobs. 

That's the America I'm wanting to "return" to.. 

 

Curious Carl