Speaking of Humble Beginnings...

Have we heard enough about them lately?  Single moms, union dads, immigrants, cleaning-lady grandmothers, even Mexico-born auto magnates.  You can't call yourself a real Amurrican, apparently, unless somebody somewhere along the line was poor and struggled.

I'm tired of  hearing about it, red tie or blue,  Tampa or Charlotte.  If you've made it to the podium, you're no longer struggling.  Not in a hand-to-mouth, get-in-line-at-a-food-pantry kind of way.  It's too bad if your forebearers struggled, but, hey, obviously somebody got it together with the American Dream and succeeded or you wouldn't be up there in the bright lights.

What I'm interested in is the people who are struggling right now.  At the Berkeley Food Pantry on Wednesday, they hit a near-record of 89 clients, a line winding down the path to the door, across the driveway and out to the sidewalk.  The little band of volunteers who man the Pantry was frenzied and could barely keep up with the line, scrambling to fill grocery bags.  There were several new clients, which is always heart-breaking, people from all walks of life who've run out of money for food.  One of the volunteers wrote an eloquent blog post about this experience.

I'm fighting this odd urge to tell you my humble beginnings.  Streetcar conductor and carpenter grandfathers, father who worked his way through school in the Depression, Jerry and I had a cardboard box for a coffee table and a couch from St. Vincent de Paul when we first got together.   Does this show that I know what I'm talking about?   Not really.  And,  anyway,  there are plenty of  born-with-a-silver-spoon people who've helped the poor in a big way.  Look at the Kennedy family.    

As far as politicians go, here's what I want to know:  Can you put yourself in the position of someone standing in line to get food that someone else has chosen for you?   Can you imagine the desperation?  And what are you going to do about it?

Don't care if your grandmother was a maid (mine) or your father sold eggs door-to-door during the Depression (Jerry).

(Just had to fit that in.  Where does that impulse come from?)