Roger Wright – Chicago

A gentle evening rain bathes the harbor docks of Liverpool as a single bass note foghorn sings to the mist. And a salty ocean breeze from beyond boundaries of time and visibility sails in the spirits of the two musicians.

“Paul’s house. His bedroom on the second floor, the one with the light still burning,” John Lennon says to Buddy Holly. “Listen, that’s his Dad playing Gershwin on the piano now. Follow the music mate. We can watch Paul get his award from upstairs. From Paul’s old bedroom. Where we first started writing. Where we tried to be you,” he grinned a John Lennon grin.

And in a Lubbock Texas musical drawl, the other spirit, the one with the big black glasses, Buddy Holly, answered, “John, I am just tickled down to my soul, that you once thought you wanted to be me.” And I thank you for that. And for bringing me here tonight.”

“”One thing I never got to do. See us on TV as we played. But I get to do it tonight.”

The two spirits watch the goings on in the east wing of the White House. Far away in America. Even farther than where these two spirits had been resting.”

“Listen to the young ones singing those songs,” Lennon shakes his spirit head, still amazed. “The songs go on.”

“Look at the President singing!” said Buddy Holly. “Look he knows the words! And look how he holds his wife’s hand. As if he knew why we all wrote all our songs.

“Ah Penny Lane!” Lennon clapped his hands. “That one was really both of ours. Now look. Here comes the trumpet solo. A United States soldier playing that trumpet. What say we give him a little something extra, What?’

“Go John go,” answers Buddy Holly. And the sound of that soldier on the trumpet in the break of Penny Lane. Like a gift from the heavens.

“Now look at Paul’s face,” says Lennon. That face as he is just about to take the stage. Look at how his eyes shine. He looks just like he did back when we were sixteen years old.” Back the first time when I heard him sing this one song.”

“One you did together? One of mine?”

“Hah” said Lennon, it was an American show tune. I never let him hear the end of it. Until we went to Hamburg of course. And had to fill eight hours a day with songs. That was on a slow day. Back then I was happy to do any song and all songs. Just to fill the time!”

“So did you ever tell him how much you loved the song?”

“Of course not! I was John! I would never tell him that. Had an attitude to show the world of course!”

“No, I never told him that I loved when he sang this song.

But I know he always knew.”

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Her glass eye never bothered me. But killing me off with a heart attack?

That was a problem.

This is a true love story because I was looking for true love. Or, like the previous marriage, some reasonable facsimile.

But the bright sunlight of truth fades to shadow for this story. Not just because it was a long time ago. But because, now looking back, I was never sure if anything she told me was really true.

There are some facts at the core of this.

I remember the look that combined horror, admiration and pity that flied across my friend Larry’s face that summer when I told him I had put a personal ad in the paper We were on a picnic bench resting with two frosty mugs of beer on the cobblestone patio of Riesi’s Bier Stube on Irving Park Road.

Men looking for women ads, I guess I should say, is what people used before Internet dating sites. I suppose there were also women looking for men ads. But I don’t remember too many of those.

I remember the ad said something about me looking for a woman who appreciated what it would be like to live in Mayberry, the fictional hometown of The Andy Griffith Show.

She’d also have to know all the words to “I Got You Babe,” by Sonny and Cher.

I hadn’t yet learned that all this talking in code could be a problem. That forging bonds over TV shows and songs that could mean anything to anyone.

Larry’s first question, after several seconds of silence and a couple of long, long drinks of his giant Weiss bier was of course, “So did anybody respond to you?” Emphasis on the word “you????”

“I got 75 responses!”

“Get out. Bullshit you did.”

“No, I really did,” And I remember being proud of that. Of course this was long before I had figured out that more is sometimes not better.

“But were they like psycho weirdoes? Women just out of prison? I know you didn’t go out on 75 dates. You’re too cheap.”

“I called back 20, and I went out with 5.”

“What about those 5?”

“Well, there’s one I’d like to see again.”

“Nice looking?”

“No but . . .”

“Funny? Rich? What?”

“She has a glass eye.”

“No way . . .“ he shook has head in the knowing way that friends do.

“And. . . .” I continued with the other part, the inevitable punch line we both knew was coming. “She’s a writer.”

“So,” he summed up. “She’s perfect for you. A glass eyed writer. Perfect for you. Does she really have a glass eye?”

I answered with an indignant “Of course!”

But looking back all these years later, all I really knew was that one eye looked in a different direction sometimes. Seemed to be more still. I didn’t really know. But she did SAY she had a glass eye.

And I never actually saw anything she wrote. But. . . .

I really wanted to her to be a writer.

Back then I wouldn’t have known the word “Edgy.” But if I would have known the word then—it’s what I would have used to describe what I was looking for.

Our first date was at Miller’s Pub. Nestled under the el tracks in the loop. Dusty framed pictures of celebrities from the 1950’s and 1960’s on the walls. Tall red vinyl booths and waitresses named Shirley who had seen it all.

And we really did like each other. Besides, as I learned later, a woman who knows how to show up unannounced at the door of a guy’s apartment, wearing only a raincoat and heels makes an impression.

Every now and then I’d wonder how her writing was going. But there was always some problem with a publisher I didn’t understand.

We passed some seasons together. Even a Christmas when both of us were alone. And knowing we wouldn’t always be together, gave each other ornaments for future trees, future loves.

At least that’s what I thought.

Often wouldn’t hear from her for a few weeks or months. But didn’t think much about it. I was not actually busy with the other 74 respondents to the personal ad. But her absences were not something I thought a whole lot about.

Then one day in the spring I walked into my apartment as the phone was ringing. Ran to pick it up and got “Hello Roger, it’s me, Melanie? From St. Louis! Cynthia’s best friend? I’m so excited to talk to you in person! Listen. Our plane is due in next Friday and we are so excited about your wedding!

And that’s where it got weird.

Because talk of weddings with my glass eyed friend Cynthia never, ever, ever ever happened. Ever.

I had no idea there was a wedding plan. I didn’t even know there was a friend named Melanie from St. Louis. One who would be getting an airplane next Friday.

All I knew at that moment was this cold, slimy shiver of fear that coursed through my very soul as I stood looking out onto Roscoe Street in Chicago with that phone in my hand.

In the several weeks prior to the call, Melanie told me—she had been to Chicago to help Cynthia go shopping for a dress. She said that Cynthia loved the ring I had given her. And was so pleased that her best friend had finally found someone she wanted to marry.

Stammering out that I had no idea what she was talking about; I don’t remember everything I said. But I did get across that she might want to NOT get on that airplane and come to Chicago. Because there was no wedding plan.

I remember she asked me, “You’re the Roger who is the executive with the electric company, right?

“Yeah.”

“So I don’t understand?” she said

“Me neither!”

We hung up and I began making calls to try and find Cynthia. There were always housing issues with her. And sometimes she didn’t have a phone. She moved around a lot. And I wasn’t able to reach her that day.

The weekends passed and still no Cynthia. No word at all.

Swaying back and forth between the comedy (Gosh, shouldn’t I be getting ready for my wedding?) and the creepiness of the situation, it was a long weekend.

Finally, come Monday, I reached her boss.

“Cynthia,” this guy told me, “had to take a few days off… . . . . .”

“How come?”

“Because her fiancé, some guy named Roger, had a heart attack. And they’re not sure if he’s gonna make it.”

“Not sure?”

“Yeah, they were going to move to Dallas. That’s where he was being transferred. But now all the plans are on hold.”

I thanked him and hung up the phone.

Called a few more numbers where I thought I might find her—and didn’t.

And I never saw her again.

A couple of weeks after all this ended, I remember walking to my car with Larry after work one day. We got to the edge of the parking lot and he said, “Tell you what Roger, I’ll stay over here, and you go on over and start your car. Just in case anything’s wired to that ignition, we wouldn’t want the world to loose both of us, would we?”

“She didn’t really try and kill me off. She just talked about it.”

“Yeah. Right. I know. She’s a writer,” he laughed.

“That’s what she told me.”

“Uh huh. Well, you sure wanted her to be a writer. Maybe next time, you might want to oh I don’t know . . .maybe see something she wrote?”

Because here in the United States, the global warming deniers won.

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That music playing in your head right now. Listen. Hear it?
Dick Buckley, who died today, on the hottest day of the year, could help you hear it better.

Spin a baritone bass rainbow colored thread through all the great jazz that ever was and ever will be and Dick Buckley will be the guy who could help you hear it better.

You don’t have to know jazz. You don’t even have to like jazz to appreciate what this man left behind. Although if you were a listener, before he was done with you, you would know jazz. If you listened regularly you would come to feel jazz in much the same way that you feel yourself breathing.

Because Dick Buckley was a guy who taught uncountable numbers of people to hear. Dick Buckley was the guy who made me hear the noble silence of the notes Count Basie didn’t play. Dick Buckley taught me the majesty in the silken street smart stories of the tall guy in the picture, Joe Williams. And most of all Dick Buckley kept front and center the legions of musicians who were sometimes forgotten through the years, the ones with the talent that stretched up to the dizzying heights of the skyscrapers that populate Chicago’s skyline. The unnamed players (unnamed by all but Dick Buckley) who had that moment in Jimmy and Marian McPartland’s back yard on a summer night just like this one. That session on the lawn that time Teagarden was stumbling through town and somehow managed to find his way to the McPartland’s back yard where he’d create something breathtaking on his trombone, and then Bud Freeman would take a turn, Marian on the piano, Jimmy on the cornet, Cousin Pidge, from the neighborhood would be looking on adoringly, while Eddie Condon smiled. And this was all a long, long time ago, way before your time, but because Dick Buckley was there you were too. Dick Buckley helped you hear it better. Dick Buckley remembered for all of us.

Cultural icons like Dick Buckley make every town a small town. And in this small town, I worked with Mr. Buckley’s son Jeff for a short time, many years ago. I remember the jaw dropping moment when I asked Jeff if he was related to Dick Buckley and he laughed and said, “Yeah, that’s my Dad.” I gushed some forgotten words of adoration. Jeff asked if I wanted an autographed picture. To which I mutely nodded yes. So to Jeff and all his family, my sincere outstretched hand in this time of sorrow. The world lost a cultural pillar. You lost a Dad.

Chicago hangs hot, heavy and still this sad summer night. Might rain, but if it does, it won’t break the heat. So I’ll put on some Joe Williams. I’ll hear how sad, I’ll hear the trouble he’s had. And when I hear him singing, I won’t feel so alone.

Dick Buckley taught me how to do that. Me and countless others.

Quite a gift Dick Buckley left the world.

“Happiness.”

Chapter Excerpt
“Finding Work When There Are No Jobs
From Part I: “Standing in the Job Search Line”
Copyright 2010 Roger Wright

There is NOTHING Fun About this Line

It’s the giant, universal line to find a job. THE JOB SEARCH LINE. As you stand in the line, it barely moves. Up at the front you’ve heard tell there is a job. But you can’t see the front. No one is smiling in this LINE. Sound familiar?

In the JOB SEARCH LINE almost everything you know about finding work has been turned upside down.

• EXPERIENCE—can hurt you.
• WELL WRITTEN RESUMES—mean nothing.
• PERFORMANCE or RESULTS—don’t matter.
• LOYALTY or LONGEVITY—is a quaint memory.
• WELL RUN COMPANIES—are no longer the goal.
• HAVING A CONVERSATION—is rare.
• ANONIMITY —must be maintained.
• ADVERTISING A JOB—often doesn’t mean it exists.

Perhaps the most diabolical characteristic of the “JOB SEARCH LINE” is that if you don’t look hard, everything can seem just fine. Business as usual.

There are lots of reasons for that. All of which have to do with job search being a system. A big, whirring, humming along machine that has a big red switch on the side which says, RAISE THE PROTECTIVE SHIELDS whenever it senses a thinking job applicant swimming like a shark nearby.

If the machine could talk it would say to you” Keep walking, folks! “Go about your business. Everything is fine here.”

You shake your head, blink your eyes, and loose any lingering thoughts of systems protecting themselves. You assume that all is well. You’ll just send out a few more resumes. If something is wrong here it must be your fault. Right?

So you turn back to the Internet Job Search site, type in the name of a job, and start pushing resumes out into cyberspace. You’re working. So you must get something back from your work, right? Hmmm. No response? Better just work harder.

And that goes on till a stray thought floats across your mind . . .wait a minute Mister Person Offering A Job . . .. tell me again why I’m not allowed to know your name?

The JOB SEARCH LINE can —above all—be deceptive.

So in order to make sure you get out of it—and on to the business of finding work—lets take a very hard look at the JOB SEARCH LINE.

The Giant Line Starts with Labeling

The Giant Line starts with “labeling.” When you get in the line, you get labeled.

Labeling people always leaves someone out. Even labels like “Unemployed” or “Underemployed.”

Standing on the fringes of those labels are individual human beings. And every single person’s story is unique.

Perhaps you wouldn’t give yourself a label. For you, there’s more to it than “Unemployed.” Perhaps not. You used to have a paycheck. Now you don’t. Or the paycheck you now have has a much lower number on it.

Maybe you are a person who used to look for work, and now you don’t even try anymore. Why should you? Nothing happened.

Maybe your job search is more like a story where nothing happened.

See? You just got in line and already there’s a problem. A “Label.” One that really doesn’t capture who you are. Often doesn’t even come close.

And There You Stand

Now labeled, you stand. And THE JOB SEARCH LINE can be pictured something like this.

You are standing in a really long line. Shuffling slowly towards the JOB at the front. The line stretches around 3 city blocks, winds its way out to the edge of town, travels past empty houses, deserted farms and barren fields, stretches on out to the next town where it passes by tumbleweed empty abandoned factories, boarded up storefronts, and crumbling parking lots in front of empty office buildings. You can’t see much of anything beyond the person in front of you because it’s dark as night.

No one speaks. Above all, it’s quiet. A disturbing quiet.

In the search for JOBS, everyone’s alone. And quiet.

When you first took your place in the line, somebody handed you a book. In the book were the basics of how to get a job. Most everyone still has his book—though some lay scattered along the ribbon of people winding their way across a dark, still wasteland where jobs once grew.

What’s in the book? Cautionary tales of chewing gum in job interviews, warnings of letting the new boss know you were fired for punching the old boss in the nose, dreams of the perfect resume.

All the usual advice. All based on the usual premise that the shortest distance between two points, the shortest distance to the job, is a straight line. Logical assumption. So you stand in the line. The line for the job. You might be munching on potato chips watching a daytime talk show or staring blankly at an internet job board, or filling out a profile in an HR office. But even then you are also in a line. That giant line for a job.

The line inches forward so slowly you can feel wrinkles in your face growing deeper.

Finally, you get to the front of the line. You are dressed in your finest job interview clothes. The hair is perfect. The handshake is firm. You are just about to look the hiring manager straight in the eye and the thought flashes into your brain like a buzz saw.

There is no job. All the jobs are gone.

There are no jobs.

Now what?

You’ve reached the front of that seemingly endless line and there are no jobs.

What do you do now?

You are standing there dumbfounded. Not sure where or how to move. You’ve gone through the line. Done everything asked of you. And nothing happened.

The way the system is set up didn’t work for you.

So you begin to wonder. What if . . . . .

• You had your own damn line? Why not? The one you were standing in with everyone else didn’t work.
• The entire SYSTEM surrounding how we search for jobs does more harm than good. Ever spend a moment on an internet job board? Apply for a job that doesn’t exist? Ever wonder if perhaps useful, fairly paid work and not a “job,” would be a better goal for you?
• The best path for you, in your search for work, was NOT a straight line? As silly as it might sound, what if the path to work for YOU required some zigging and zagging?

That big, giant single line for the JOBS might be the loneliest place you’ve ever seen. . Besides being quiet, the other thing about that giant line for THE JOB is that it’s desperately lonely. Even when you religiously take your daily two tablespoons of “networking,” recommended by pretty much everyone—the LINE is lonely.

Nothing feels lonelier than walking into a networking event where you don’t know a soul.

But these “What if’s . . .” are pretty radical thoughts. So before you try anything too wacky, giving it all up and joining some other circus, lets see what’s at the front of the line.

At The Front of The Line

At the front of the silent line of people winding their way through that endless darkness, nobody has to tell you there are no jobs. Nobody has to read you a list of statistics. You just know. Even in that deathly night silence when no one is speaking.

You already know because all the places you’ve tried don’t even bother to send our rejection letters anymore. You know from the looks when you walk in to fill out an application. You already know because you can see it in the faces of the other silent, head down souls in the line

So you’ve snaked your way up the line, waiting for your turn, because that’s all you know how to do. And now you’re at the front. Your turn.

But again, you are greeted with silence. And this is what you imagine.

At the front of the line, stretching out to the left and right you see a counter. Like a barricade. Behind the counter sit faceless, black hooded people never speaking. Just shaking their heads and silently mouthing the word “No.”

On a big sign tacked up sloppily behind the counter you see a list of promises.

• Read this book and you could land the job of your dreams.
• You too could make $10,000 a month from the comfort of your very own home.
• Complete this training program and join the other sales professionals sharing investment advice with their friends and family.
• Register here for jobs in the $100k and up level.
• $1,000 will buy you the perfect resume.
• $400 per hour will buy you Coaching on job search.
• More education, more job.
• I did this. . .so you could too.

You already know about schemes that prey on the vulnerable.

So all of that is what you face if you go forward.

Now what? Could you go backwards? Maybe go stand in the line again? As if you missed something? Stranger things have happened. People keep sending résumés to internet job boards—by the millions—even though nothing happens.

What if you were to turn around and get back in line?

You turn around and gaze back over that useless line still stretched out behind you, even longer now. From the front of the line you have a better view of what’s behind you. What you’ve just walked through. You can see more clearly.

Strewn along the line evokes an image of rusted out cars, refrigerators with the doors pulled off, burning tires, coffee grounds, crumpled newspapers, old neon signs ripped from the front of failed businesses, office furniture slashed with the stuffing popping out, giant metal fabricating machines from once humming factories rusted and cold. The battered ruins of so many places where people used to work. In these smoking mountains of trash it’s as if you can see the pride, the self respect, the training for a trade, the tools and even the passion for doing the work that all the people in that endless line used to do so well. Abandoned self-respect and pride smell of sulfur in the acrid night wind.

And sprinkled along this parade of broken dreams, like the cut glass shards of a shattered mirror you see the remnants of questions littering the night. Questions so clear they might as well be written out on scraps of paper.

What did I do wrong?

Where did I mess up?

Is this my fault?

Is this fair?

Why is this so different than I expected it to be?

Should I just try again?

Maybe try harder?

Can anyone help me?

And that’s even before you start hearing the swelling chorus of “other people’s success stories.”

Often presented as inspiration, but sometimes with a thinly veiled patronizing tone just below the surface; other people’s success stories can be well intentioned. Or they can be clever ways of blaming the victim.
Inspirational stories don’t have to be evil or patronizing. Sometimes they help. And sometimes somebody wins lotteries too.

In the end though: it’s your story, not somebody else’s success story that matters to you.

So before you turn around and try the line again. Or, before you keep walking past the faceless demons at the front of the line into deeper darkness; lets try something different. Perhaps try thinking differently.

Let’s start with telling your story.

My one and only love,

It is snowing at the foot of the island. Grey skies. A winter wind of moderation. And the ship is going down, our eyes will soon feel the icy waves, so there is not a lot of time, maybe just a second or two, and I wanted these last words to be with you.

Let it always be known what happened here. We were coming home to our land of snow. Not because the mouth of the river they called Mississippi wasn’t bountiful. The fish swam in swamp land waving grass under star light currents of plenty and all the music had a jump and merry melody. We really could have stayed.

But the land of snow called us home. We had winter in our bones. Acadian driftwood. Gypsy tailwinds. So we set the compass north again.

And just in sight of the tip of the island is when the fire started on the ship.

Someday they will find the mighty ship. They will puzzle at the semicircular metal collar several feet across, built into the hull. They will surmise correctly that it was an oven. All that will be missing is the smell of warm bread baking in the snow when the fire started up. And the scripture lines I said out loud as I realized that the fire would be stronger than the ship, at just that golden moment when we passed the tip of the island and I somehow saw giant towers from the future falling, hit by strange flying machines high in the air, a vision of fires blazing strong now just like the one by the oven in our ship. I said the lines out loud. I prayed the lines from Kings, but as I prayed I also just spoke like an everyday, ordinary conversation to you. As if we were home. In our own warm kitchen. And it was almost time for dinner, “but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”

The ship started to roll slowly, tip to the left, and began to sink beneath the waves. And I prayed again, the lines from the book of John,

“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”

A long time from now, my one and only love, when the children of children, carrying this deeply buried memory of you and I, are running, playing dancing joyfully in the snow, in a time that will come even after the towers in the sky had fallen and in that naked dawn when only a few survived, in that time so far from now, they will finally find our ship.

They will measure it off. Our 30-foot length of a wood hulled vessel. They will puzzle as to why we had an oven. Never having smelled our home made bread. And they will find our ship near where those towers had fallen from the sky. They will find our ship in the wet melting simmering heat of July. A heat like the one that drove us back home from New Orleans.

And when they find that ship in the middle of some hot July.

Somewhere, we will be feeling that gypsy tail wind, running with our little family, children laughing, tramping through the snow, looking up and catching frosty white flakes in our eyes like shimmering winter diamonds. The splendor of the winter. And the comforting chilly white winds of home.

************************************************************
On Wednesday July 14,2010, workers in Manhattan excavating the site for a future World Trade Center came upon the remnants of a ship. It was estimated that the ship had lain undisturbed for over 200 years.

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Barack Obama, alone, leaned against the wall in the kitchen corridor underneath the Hotel Allegro in Chicago and looked at his watch. 


Next to him, a bus cart jammed with dirty breakfast dishes waiting to be washed.

In the dining room above, his introduction was winding down, and in 90 seconds, he’d get a running start for the stairs and go bounding up two at a time to spring into the good sized room for one last stop on this campaign for US Senate.


As Barack Obama stood alone; the smoke filled, back room, cigar chomping, nod and a wink echoes of generations of Chicago politicians paused for one eternal moment and all took a look.


Later that night, all these generations of dark and shaded political men knew, Barack Obama would be up in front of a room 10 times the size of the one in the Allegro. He would be thanking everyone. So they paused for one quick glance.


Santiago Cruz, 52 years old and smiling like the Columbian sunshine even when he thought himself alone, carrying a grey, plastic tub of dirty coffee cups and saucers, didn’t notice Barack Obama on the other side of the bus cart of dishes.

Swinging his grey tub up over his head to plunk it down on the top of the cart, Santiago looked to his right and saw the quiet Obama smiling. In the space of a second, Santiago wiped his hands on his pants and took Obama’s outstretched hand. And as Barack leaned in towards the man to shake, he bumped his shoulder hard into the cart, spilling all he dishes stacked on the top on to the floor, shattering in a million pieces and at the same time sending a jarring shooting pain all through Obama’s shoulder, a pain so sharp he winced and bowed his head.


And as he winced in pain without one real clear thought at all, Obama instinctively got to his knees to begin picking up the shattered dishes.

Santiago Cruz, still stunned by the crash, stood for a moment and looked down at the man on his knees picking up the dishes. Joining him then on the floor to do the same, Santiago heard the applause from the dining room upstairs and the beep of the other man’s cell phone going off at the very same time. Santiago Cruz and Barack Obama, both kneeling on the floor, their faces a foot apart, looked straight at each other and another kind of recognition registered on Santiago’s face.

Where he had been smiling before, where Santiago ALWAYS smiled, the smile took on a deeper tone. Something changed in that smile—and there was a tone of sadness in that smile, then hope flickered for just a moment and his eyes lit up to a new brightness and he said “OBAMA! OBAMA OBAMA!”

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As Walmart gets closer to building stores in Chicago–

I wonder how long the lines will be?
And how early I’ll need to get up to make sure I get a good place?

While James McMurtry’s song still rings just as true as when he wrote it in 2004. . .

WE CAN’T MAKE IT HERE ANYMORE

Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands free
No one’s paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget’s stretched so thin
And there’s more comin’ home from the Mideast war
We can’t make it here anymore

That big ol’ building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can’t make it here anymore

See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They’re just gonna set there till they rot
‘Cause there’s nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There’s a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don’t come down here ‘less you’re looking to score
We can’t make it here anymore

The bar’s still open but man it’s slow
The tip jar’s light and the register’s low
The bartender don’t have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can’t make it here anymore

High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what’ll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it’s way too late to just say no
You can’t make it here anymore

Now I’m stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
‘Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can’t make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in
Should I hate ’em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They’ve never known want, they’ll never know need
Their shit don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed
Their kids won’t bleed in the damn little war
And we can’t make it here anymore

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let ’em eat jellybeans let ’em eat cake
Let ’em eat sh$%, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can’t make it here anymore

And that’s how it is
That’s what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind
If you’re listening at all
Get out of that limo
Look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone
Tell us all why

In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That’s done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There’s rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can’t make it here anymore

Music and lyrics © 2004 by James McMurtry

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbWRfBZY-ng&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Wait! Not yet! I yelled into the mythical phone line running between Chicago and the white snow heavens of Door County deep in a frozen January sun. Can’t we just have just one more breakfast?

Remembering the great Door County/Chicago writer Norbert Blei’s story of Al Johnson shouting back through the phone trying to find out why he didn’t get his Chicago Tribune delivered. “Yes!” He bellows with a smile into the phone line. “That’s me. I’m the one. I’m Al Johnson. I’m the guy who put the goats on the roof of my restaurant! Now what can you do about getting that newspaper delivered?”

The news of his passing came just as the summer season started to gear up. In these hard times when a trip to the county, to the other end of that phone line, wasn’t possible, solely for the reason that the money wasn’t there anymore; I was thrown back hard to the County in any given January. Memories of all those years when a trip was possible. And I screamed through that phone line. “Just one more breakfast.”

One like this.

It’s blessedly early. You dip down Highway 42 from Ephraim, from Fish Creek, into the glory of the winter sunrise, a world that Al and his wife Ingert fashioned from a beauty so crystalline clear in the white winds whipping all that sunshine off the icy rhythm of Sister Bay that it made you sure that there really is going to be a brand new day.

A beauty so sharply defined that it almost makes your shoulders ache as you glide to a stop in front of Al’s Place. You leave the car, and then baptized for just a moment by that winter wind, you pull open the big wooden door. Walking right in, greeted by a nod and a smile and a good morning . . .because isn’t that all it really takes, your heart springs awake because there is a table by the front window.

As you walk to the prized window table, you silently pay your respects to the men at the back counter. The regulars. You’ve never spoken. You would never even think of it. You don’t know their names and they don’t know yours and that doesn’t matter in the least. Because it’s with them you get the gift of sharing this place, this winter morning wonder. Door County when it’s empty of all but those who live there all year round. You have been silently admitted into a family larger than any you could even imagine. As the regulars tell stories; your food arrives. And here’s the thing about the food: it’s always good. The Swedish pancakes, the lingonberries, the sausage, the eggs and the coffee. All through the years. Even in the dead of winter, that morning when you own the prized view out the front windows of the restaurant—the food is always good. And somehow seems to arrive before you’ve even said what you wanted.

And then Al. Even when he stops, he is always moving. His eyes forever scanning the room. That hard scrabble tough young man from the west side of Chicago. Finding his way to a winter paradise. Creating a family, one that went so very far beyond people who were also named Johnson. Seeing the simple and glorious beauty of Sister Bay and then stopping. Right there. To put the goats on the roof.
And building something that will last.

I put down the phone. Tired and sad that I’m not on the other end. In the County. Looking out at Sister Bay. Sitting quietly at the memorial. Just to be there. Determined now more than ever to find some way to get back. To get back in the autumn. But to be there most of all in the winter. To sit at one of the tables in the window. Still sad because Al is gone. But then . . .

Looking down at the table. As Al Johnson’s place holds us all and keeps us warm. Noticing my coffee cup has been refilled.

Without me even knowing how or when.