And, from of all people, Gary Hart:

The struggle here is whether we will return to a pre-New Deal America with many fewer ladders of opportunity, safety nets for the poor and elderly, and regulatory protections for consumers, workers, and the environment. That is really what this endless political struggle in American regarding the size and role of government is about. There is some evidence to support the theory that the unstated purpose behind so-called “supply side” tax cuts was to create such huge deficits that the domestic role of government would have to return to the age of Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge. Two endless wars have not helped in this regard.

Hold on to your seats. For we are entering a period when we will find out how strong American democracy really is… and what our values really are. When the Tea Party gets the kind of government it claims to want, few Americans are going to like it. But then, of course, we will have to start our struggle for justice and fairness all over again.

The November elections of 2010 saw a dramatic rise in the number of conservatives in both state and national legislatures. This, in turn, has had consequences – most of them ugly. The current can’t-take-my-eyes away disaster is a Wisconsin’s governor’s hell bent intent to destroy unions (correction – only the unions that didn’t support him in the election).

Now as my previous post mentioned, I have real problems with teachers’ unions. Specifically, I don’t like the way they eat their young and I don’t like the way they sometimes protect incompontent teachers.

But being a union member, I also recognize that they serve an important (dare I say “conservative and liberal”) value of preventing the abuse of power. And there are abuses (one might argue defunding education while insisting on better results is an abuse).

The current Republican trend to destroy unions is disturbing particularly in light of the very real destruction of the middle class in America.

Krugman has a most excellent post about how the American government works today.

In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.

Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.

You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years — which it has — that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.

And now Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to get rid of public-sector unions, too.

There’s a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America’s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.

The destruction of the middle class is a very real worry for me. I fear what it means for our democracy. I certainly fear what it means for my daughters.

In Ohio, you join the teachers union. It is not an inexpensive membership. Dues can range from $650 to $800.

Every year the union gives you a knick-knack. Lunch box. A fleece blanket. Flash drive. Ren and I like to come home and proudly display our $650 whatever.

This year, because I wander the district, the union didn’t realize I was anywhere. The second to last day of school someone remembered my name on a list and forwarded me the 2010 union gift.

Here it is, my $650 water bottle.

Water Bottle with Tomato Paste

This is a bit tongue and cheek. I don’t, necessarily, have to join the union. It does give you some additional benefits – like access to a lawyer and – usually – decent representation when it comes to contract negotiations. In my – limited – opinion, the quality of teachers in Ohio ranks a good bit higher that what I saw in Texas. Part of this is a supply and demand issue. But part of it, I suspect, is that Ohio is a union state and Texas isn’t.

All that said, I hate the fact that unions are always willing to eat their young. And sometimes (like in Ren’s case) they’re run by fairly incompetent people. And, sometimes, they spend way too much time on protecting terrible teachers that need to go (although, in OHEA’s case I think they do a pretty good job of NOT doing this).

So I stay a member. Reluctantly.

When he was an adolescent, a tractor rolled over my grandad. He spent the better part of a year in a body cast and, throughout his very full life, would make many a visit to the surgery that, over time, I suspect, made him the bionic man. In all my memories he walked with cane, sometime two, but never let it slow him down.

Not one to back from a challenge, he choose construction as his trade. It was through that trade that I got to know him.

As a young boy I don’t think grandad knew what to make of his young grand kids. My earliest memories of him were of a smiling, white haired man, definitely loving, yet peering at me with a slightly quizzed expressions. I remember him poking me with his cane. He wasn’t the grandad that hopped on a bicycle to ride to the park (that was  my other grandpa).

It wasn’t that grandad wasn’t a people person. Far from it. To this day I think he was the most gregarious person I’ve ever known. But I think young children baffled him a bit.

My junior year of high school I went to work for him (like many an uncle, son-in-law, and my own father). My aunt and uncle hired him as the go to man for building their house. My second day of work he had me on masonry, lifting 40 lbs cement blocks up to other fellas who formed the foundation of separate garage structure. My body screamed in agony for the next three days, but it was bearable because grandad gave me a compliment.

“You did good,” he said.

“I did?”

“Yeah, the mason team wanted to hire you for the summer.”

For grandad, a measure of a man’s worth was in how well he did the job. And how well a man could pick up the skills for a job. For two wonderful summers, I worked beside him as he taught me many a carpenter’s skill.

One day he got it in his mind that we had to cap the chimney of my aunt’s 3 story home. Their roof was peeked, a steep 45 degree angle with the chimney at the end. Grandad first wanted to climb up the ladder and do it with me, but I told him that was a bad idea. He could shout directions from the level ground.

I started up. Once I got to the top of the roof I turned around only to see grandad following, his two canes hanging on his shoulders and the ladder moving with his gate. When he got to the point where the ladder contacted the roof he looked at me and said,

“Give me a hand.”

I did, with a good deal of trepidation because of the incline. As I grabbed his right hand, he slipped, kicking the ladder out from under him.

I threw myself over the peak of the roof and barely managed to grab his left hand before half his body slid of the roof. We hung there for a moment, his legs swaying off the edge of the roof and me holding on for his dear life.

And then he started laughing.

“Uh oh,” he laughed.

“Shit, grandad!” I yelled. “This IS NOT funny.”

Thing was, grandad had upper body strength like horse. He could grab a jackhammer with his wirey frame and tear down concrete walls like they were paper. He often put me to shame when, walking with two canes, he’d lift bales of hay (used for shoring up beach erosion) like they were nothing.

So he did a pull up, using first my arms, then my torso, then my legs to pull him to the apex of the roof. And then it was back to work (with me eventually scrambling down the chimney to grab the fallen ladder).

The one comfort, the one major variation to his younger work days, was that we took 45 minute lunch breaks. It was during that time he’d tell me all kinds of stories from his youth, growing up in the depression, raising a family of 5, working colorful and interesting jobs. Grandad was a storyteller. He liked to talk to people, learn their stories, and intertwine them with his narrative. I would listen for hours, often with grandma chipping in with some details, mesmerized.

For grandad, stories boiled down to a usual assortment of elements. There was the church, the CRC and RCA denominations that formed the bedrock of a solid Christian faith. There was family. There were friends who, almost always, were tied to the church. And there was work. Simple ingredients, but with my grandad’s master touch, regaled me every minute.

I think about those two summers often. A grandson should have that opportunity, to work with his grandad and experience a love and pride in hard work, stories, and blood. Sometimes, today, it seems as though generations are too far, too broadly paced. Families are far and shared moments come fleetingly during a holiday or two. Sure, you might be able to convince your older relatives to join Facebook where you can catch the occasional update on what they’re doing. But it’s not the same as a shared experience.

My grandad died 6 years ago today. I didn’t see him his last month which, according to my dad, was a good thing. He suffered a stroke a month before he died. And he wasn’t all grandad anymore. More like bits and pieces.

Ren and I lived in Houston at the time. The funeral was in Michigan on the second to the last day of school. And, in one of the most regrettable moments of my life, I didn’t make the funeral.

At 32, that’s the do over I want out of this life. I want to yell out my younger self and tell him to get on the damn plane and be with his family. Say a proper goodbye and tell a few of grandad’s crazy stories.

That’s the do over I really want.

I realize that, so far, I’ve been blessed. No great tragedies. A wonderful, loving wife. Two new daughters. A profession I’m passionate about. A church that’s home and friends to pray and fellowship with.

But I have a strong suspicion that, along with providence (or as a part of providence), a good many of those blessings have roots that go back to my grandad.

And I miss him.

I’ve become that man, that grumpy old man, who yells at kids to get off his yard.

We live on a culdesac that, for some reason, never gets picked up by the all knowing google maps. People frequently map their way to our house only to call us at the dead end on the other side, staring at a row of honey suckle and locust trees.

The other side of the dead end, the side we don’t live on, has a road that runs into Section 8 housing. In Cincinnati, Section 8 usually means poor and black. On our side of the dead end the road runs to a Jehovah’s Witness church which has a nice basketball court.

See where this is going?

It used to be that everyone would cut through our neighbors yard. Our thicket of trees and brambles were too much of a hassle. Our neighbor’s drive way ran up along the dead end, so folks only had to navigate a small tangle of honey suckle.

But about 3 weeks ago he got fed up. Two young men came traipsing through his lawn and driveway and then promptly threw 2 beer bottles into our street. Over the years we’ve both had things stolen and dumped on our property (not to mention the occasional high speed chase ending in the honey suckle). He had enough. He planted 2 pricker bushes and put “No Trespassing” signs in front of the trees, thereby diverting the traffic through my yard.

And there is a lot of traffic. Kids run their bikes through our yard. Push strollers through the brambles. Irritate McKenzie to no end (she goes after them from time to time). Occasionally frighten our daughters (all strangers who are scary are called “locos”).

I yell at them. At first I was polite. Adults, generally, get the point. But the young teens – spitting images of the kids I used to teach in Houston – kept walking through. Now I’m gruff and to the point.

“Get off my property. Quit riding your bikes on my lawn. Go use the side walk for crying out loud.”

Not that this works. They’ve taken to cussing and sassing me. When they do, Ren calls Springfield township police.  Her mama bear instincts get working and she’s no nonsense.

They usually take off running when the cops show up.

“Winton Terrace?” The cops usually ask.

“Yeah” we say.

“Okay,” they sigh. “We try and keep Section 8 with Section 8.”

The whole situation frustrates me. I’m pissed at the kids, who are being straight A standard pubescent punks. I’m annoyed at myself for being “that guy”. I’m sad that I’m experiencing a stereotype that’s turning true to form. I’m worried for my daughters who associate strangers – particularly strangers who talk back with cuss words – with some very bad history.

Fortunately, we’ve got good neighbors who are just as likely to confront bad behavior as we are. I have back up.

But we’re thinking of putting up a fence.