RepFord

Fall is an amazing time in Detroit.  Once Mr. Henry Ford started paying $5 a day for work done inside, farmers from hither and yon left their fields and flocked to the Motor City.  In doing so, they largely created neighborhoods based on where they’d come from, so the folks back home could keep an eye on one another.  As a result, Detroit’s religious institutions of all denominations had harvest festivals rich with the most authentic home cooking one could hope for—and while those neighborhoods aren’t as plentiful today, many churches et al are keeping up that tradition, much to the delight of any Detroiter who likes to eat pierogi, crawdad stew, poutine, or falafel.

It seemed appropriate then, that the first time I had red eye gravy was at a breakfast honoring the retirement of a congressman who had represented Downriver Detroit for years and years.  Downriver was where most of the southern emigres landed, and they Loved. This. Man, in part because he told things like it was.  In a trade known for obfuscating reality, William Ford (I think no relation to Henry) wore his heart, and his words, on his sleeve, authoring the Direct Student Loan Program that opened college doors wide open for his blue-collar district, and dozens more. 

But the time had come to pass the leadership torch, and with a group of college admission advocates in town, what better way to help him transition than inviting them to the Capitol for a breakfast to honor him and to tell him their stories about the students who only got to college because of his work.  I don’t remember the rest of the meal, but I’m sure water was in ample supply, because that is the only way you can eat ham and red eye gravy.  I imagine it would be like kissing the Morton Salt girl; the impression of it lingered for an incredibly long time.

The other memory was having the privilege of sitting next to Rep. Ford at breakfast, being from Michigan and all.  It was easy to see this was an incredibly kind, self-effacing man, whose interest in small talk was minimal.  That’s why it made sense to talk about the student loan program, and ask if he had any memories of his time in Congress that stood out from the others.

He started speaking like it had just happened yesterday.  “The day we passed the Reagan tax cut”, an act of Congress that whacked the highest tax bracket to a shadow of itself, and doomed America to budget deficits nearly every year since.  As I recall, he said he kept talking to his colleagues to try and understand how rich people could complain of having so little, when his entire district consisted of nothing but people who really did have so little.  “The day we voted on that bill, I got in my station wagon, and drove home.  And I stopped at every bar between Washington and Detroit along the way.  I had to talk to people who had common sense, who realized what a terrible idea this was.”

In this election year, I’m hoping you’ll have the chance to talk with your candidates for office, and ask them two simple questions—what kind of car do you drive, and when’s the last time you were in a bar?  I’m thinking we could use more elected officials who take a station wagon to work, and who think bars are superior social networks to the Internet.

Oh—and ask them how many church picnics they’ve attended.

Spanakopita, anyone?

Woe

“There are two ways to make your life shorter. One is to try and make all the green lights.  The other is to think about what you should have done.”

Beckoned by a heavy glass with crowns
The ice that lands but somehow doesn’t chip
The twenty-year old liquid swirls around
As we reflect on all our sailing ships
The kids
The job
The untrimmed hedge
No single one leads to the ledge
And yet in aggregate it seems
With lights out they stave off our dreams.

It happens too within our waking sleep
Creating webs of rich dilemmas we
Walked hunch their weight on shoulders square and steep
We grunt and long to see a way to be
The one
Who knows
Just what to do
To find a way to make it through
And break the dark of endless bleak
To light mind’s sky with just one streak.

Seeing dark lends nothing to the dawn
Where answers lie not in the black but day
Look briefly if you must to what seems gone
Just long enough to know the new born way
The path
Is clear
If you but see
The way it’s really meant to be
With that the future, yours to keep
Embodies every part of sleep.

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