Getting a state job in 1986 ended a few of the common problems I'd experienced as a member of the Working Poor™️. The biggest one was finally having health insurance. Except for military doctors, I hadn't gotten health care since I was a teenager. My birth of my two children, like roughly half the kids in the US, was paid for by Medicaid. After that ran out, we were on our own. I also became eligible for paid sick and vacation leave, an absolute luxury. Few hourly jobs in my region offered such benefits, at least among those who worked in the trades. If rain or snow canceled a day's work, a day's pay was also canceled.

One thing working for the state didn't alleviate was low wages. In 1986 as a married man with two children, I barely made $15K. There's a long list of issues that come with not making much money. Not being able to save meant that any unexpected expense had the potential to become a catastrophe. For years, I owned a succession of high-mileage, low-end, thousand-dollar cars. Any attempt at taking a long trip was always a gamble. I owned cars where the windows wouldn't work and a car that burned two quarts of oil every day. I was well into my thirties before I ever bought four new tires at one time. I bought a great many used ones for $25 apiece, though.

These days, I like to look back on my decision not to have cable television during my kid's formative years as a moral choice to keep their minds from becoming polluted, but the reality is, I just could not afford it. I was more fortunate than many, since my mom had herself graduated from Working Poor™️ status into the professional ranks. An extreme generous soul, she bought lots of school clothes and shoes for my kids through the years.

Even after a miracle happened, and we were able to get a mortgage on a home, I quickly learned about the challenges that posed when my water heater died. There was no landlord to call to get it fixed. I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of timely computer-side jobs to pay for a replacement, or else we'd have all been taking cold showers for a while. I'm not too proud to admit that I even had to borrow money from my high school-aged son, who worked a fast food job until the next payday when our refrigerator died unexpectedly.

I finally escaped that cycle through longevity and promotions at work. Of course, marrying Wonder Woman who makes pretty good dough, was also a big factor. She's a CPA, and ever since we got married I've just turned my paycheck over to her, and like magic, the bills get paid, my debit card never gets rejected and the holidays aren't a ball of financial stress. It's magic, I tell you.

My personal experience informs my feelings for the people who are still members of the Working Poortm™️. I saw the teacher's assistants, custodians, and cafeteria workers from my public school paying the same amount for their family health insurance as the highest compensated administrators. I've been to plenty of restaurants in the summer where my waitress was a schoolteacher working a second job. I've had the same experience at the grocery store, watching a high school business teacher ring up my groceries. I've seen the legislature go years without raising teacher pay, cutting benefits, and taking away paid incentives for graduate degrees. All this happens because we have a state law forbidding collective bargaining for public employees.

You'll notice that I haven't even touched on the criminal refusal of the ruling class to raise the wages of our lowest paid workers at the same time they created the economic system that foisted Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg on us.

No warfare but class warfare. Workers of the world, unite.

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Early evening, April four
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride
Pride, In the Name of Love - U2

Shortly after 6:00 PM on this date in 1968, the bullets of an assassin took the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the only American born in the 20th century honored with a national holiday. At the time of his death, King was one of the most unpopular men in the United States. He's probably received more death threats than anyone involved in the Civil Rights movement. Many people believe that he foresaw his own death.

King was in Memphis that day in support of striking sanitation workers. He was stridently anti-capitalist, dedicated to a world where wealth wasn't relegated to a tiny minority while working people lived in poverty. In his speech the night before his murder, King's prophetic words are chilling:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

I was only three years old when Dr. King died, so I have no memory of him. I do remember the struggle to get his birthday made into a holiday. Some Southern states insist on co-honoring Robert. E Lee on the same day because, well, some southern states are run by racist assholes, kind of like out whole country is now.

Later on the evening of April 4th, Robert Kennedy, Sr., gave a speech in Indianapolis that he led off by annoucing King's murder, eliciting screams of rage and pain from those in the audience. He spoke for the first time in public about the murder of his brother in Dallas five years prior. Then he uttered the words that were to be engraved on his memorial, for he too was to die by an assassins bullets just a couple of months later.

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."

Every honest person in the US knows that we still haven't gotten to the promised land. We still have the same division that Kennedy spoke about. Despite the fascist victory last November, the dream isn't dead, though. We still have the time and the means to make it come true. It's going to take hard work and courage. Will you help?

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Wonder Woman and I are taking two of our high-schools aged grandsons on a road trip to Gainesville, Florida on Friday. We are going so that Connor, the 17-year-old, can participate in a charity bike ride for Friedreich's Ataxia, the degenerative nueromuscular illness he lives with. It's one of the few times a year he gets to be around other FA folks. It does him good to see people who have made it to adulthood, living successfully with disease. He was provided with a recumbent bicycle for participating in a clinical study and he is able to pedal it on the four-mile closed course with his Nana running along beside him.

Aiden, his younger brother is coming along to ride his bike in the event too. Even though he and Connor bickered literally all the time, he's always there to steady him when he walks or to help him with his wheelchair if it's one of those days. They are typical teenage boys who speak with great authority on video game culture, anime, fast food deals and the most influential people on YouTube and TikTok. I learn a lot from them.

They aren't thrilled about getting up early for the drive but it's worth it for the carte blanch Wonder Woman gives them to load up on gas station goodies and the freedom to pick out where we eat along the way. They even like hotel breakfasts.

Connor is a fiend for Mac and Cheese. He loves the way they make it at The Cheesecake Factory, so I know we will be going there on one of the nights. He's a kind and sweet kid who constantly asks me if I'm OK. I'm not sure what kind of issues he suspects I might be having, but it always seems important to him that I'm comfortable and happy.

I'm not sure how much they'll communicate with their parents while they're gone. It's not that they will have separation anxiety. The boys just love their folks. They like to keep them informed of what they're up to. Plus, they have a little sister who was a bonus baby. She's in kindergarten. Aiden is her best friend. She'll miss him a lot. Their older brother started college this year. They alternately miss him and celebrate the extra room they have in his absence.

I'm looking forward to spending time with them. They make me laugh and feel young and woefully out of touch with pop culture. I love watching Wonder Woman shine when she's with them. She's really good at being their Nana.

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1 1/2 lbs pork shoulder
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tablespoon cumin powder
2 onions, chopped separated
4 garlic cloves, chopped and separated
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
2 tablespoons annato powder
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon oregano
4 cups canned white hominy, drained and rinsed
3-5 cups pork broth, from cooking pork shoulder
salt
2 whole fresh jalapenos, chopped (optional)

This recipe requires a simple prep.

Prepare by the onion, peel the garlic, chop the onion, peel and chop the 2 garlic cloves,

Place the meat in a large saucepan and just cover with lightly salted water.

Add one onion, 2 cloves peeled garlic, pepper, cumin, and oregano.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, skim off any foam that rises, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes.

Saute the second chopped onion and garlic in oil until translucent.

Add the remaining spices, stir for a minute.

Stir in the canned hominy, pork broth (if there is not enough pork broth, add chicken stock, I like to add it anyway for flavor, about 2-4 cups, eyeball the amount you like), and jalapenos

Cook at a simmer, covered, for 45 to 60 minutes until the meat and hominy are tender.

If necessary, cook for up to an additional 60 minutes until the chilies and onions are well blended into the broth

Degrease the stew, taste for salt, and serve in soup bowls.

Garnishes that are always served with are:
lots of lime/lemon wedges.
sliced radishes.
chopped cilantro.
Shredded cabbage(not red).
fresh packaged fried corn tortillas.

This is my entry in the April IndieWeb Carnival hosted by Jamie Thiglestad on Renewal.

One of the things I miss about working in public schools is the comfortable rhythm of the annual cycle. Unlike teachers and junior administrators, i worked twelve months of the year, not ten months like most of them. I wasn't jealous of them, not exactly. I loved the summer months when the giant high schools were mostly empty. The county adjusted our work schedule so we could have Friday's off. Some summers were non-stop projects on big technology renewals. There were others when it was tough to find things to do.

When August rolled around, and a new school year was about to kick off, it was the beginning of the cycle of life for a gigantic educational machine. I enjoyed seeing the first year teachers, regardless of whether they were young college graduates or second career types. What I really liked was seeing the paraprofessionals who sent to school and finally became teachers themselves. My district hired many teachers from northern states where it's challenging to get a job because the vacancies are few. Down here in the dirty south, where we don't have teacher's unions, it's a struggle to find qualified people.

At the high schools, before classes even start, the athletes show up on campus for fall sports. I can still hear the chants of practicing cheerleaders echoing through the empty halls. I can see another cohort of football players trying to survive another August afternoon practice, with the humidity above 90% and the temperatures near 100 degrees. I'm just so glad that these days, coaches know enough to let the players drink water. In my day and before, we were denied water for fear that it would cause cramps. In the middle of a three-hour August practice they'd give us a small handful of ice chips. That was it. Crazy, huh?

When the first day of school rolled around, I'd always try to be at a primary school to watch the spectacle of sobbing parents dropping off little Tommy and little Susie for the beginning of kindergarten. The veteran teachers were excellent at taking the kids and getting rid of the overly dramatic parents like a border collie herding sheep. Occasionally they'd even have to get the school resource officer to ask parents to leave because they were having such severe separation anxiety.

In the upper grades, I'd pay attention to what the kids were wearing and all the new haircuts and hairstyles. Almost everyone is nervous at the beginning of the year, except those veteran teachers. A new school year always meant a lot of work for me. Problems that went unreported the previous spring would pop up as emergencies. Some things, power cords for example, would always mysteriously disappear over the summer. Laptops that worked fine in May would be non-functional in September. It would normally take until about the first of October to get everything working at peak efficiency.

I worked in a county with 26 schools. Every one of them had its culture. Some had tremendous community involvement, while others would have trouble getting parents to come to open house. I learned which lunchroom ladies took the job of making tasty food seriously, and which lunchrooms to avoid at all costs. Things would evolve, though. People would retire or move on, and their replacements could make things better or worse. I've seen faculties devastated by the transfer of a beloved principal. I've seen the opposite effect when an unpopular administrator finally moved on.

Every month was predictable. Holiday breaks and exams came and went. Different sports seasons had their peculiarities. The growing sense of excitement in the spring as summer approached always felt nice. Watching another senior class get ready to move out into the world was sobering. I saw kids go all the way through their K-12 education, leave, go to college and come back as teachers. Like I said, it's a cycle and every new year is the renewal of that cycle.

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