Yesterday I read Tom Robbins story, in the Village Voice, http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-11-12/columns/how-obama-s-hopesters-took-ohio/
“I just know the one thing I’m going to do today is vote,” Wagner insisted. “I’m out of a job, and even the temp agencies are cutting back on hours. I’m hoping a lot of people make the right decision today for a president who’s going to bring change.”
Beside him, Kenny Gordon, 59, a big man with a graying beard wearing a Cleveland Browns cap stood in the parking lot holding a large “Obama–Biden” sign. He said he’d been dispatched by his local chapter of the steelworkers’ union. “I’m in the mills 40 years. I swore I’d never be there as long as my father; he did 42. But I’m getting there.” After high school, Gordon worked for awhile at Steinbrenner’s shipyards before switching to steel. “Back then, you could quit one job and get another that afternoon. There were 7,500 men in my mill when I started. All the closings have taken their toll. Jesus, there are so many empty homes now. One day, I’m watching TV, and it shows these people down in Texas living under a bridge. I look, and it’s one of my old neighbors. I couldn’t believe it. He told me he was going to get a job down there in oil because he heard it was busy. He ends up living under a bridge.”
This morning on NPR I heard a feature deconstructing the musicality and timeliness of the Depression Era song, “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”; http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96654742
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