Dateline 1984, somewhere in a downtrodden mill town in upstate New York.
Every now and then, a meaningless little moment steps out of line, and like the fellow playing chicken with a PRC tank, etches itself in time. Such a moment occurred in the spring of 1984. Sitting at a tiny desk, banging away on a vintage 1920 typewriter, creating term papers nobody ever read, the radio was on to mask household noise.
The speaker was an eager former schoolteacher and prosecutor from New York City turned congresswoman named Geraldine Ferraro. She told the story of her immigrant parents struggle, her father dying when she was young, her mother taking on menial work and accepting charity to keep her in the catholic school she could no longer afford, etc. it was, she said a “TRANS-GENERATIONAL LEAP” of faith, her family and their contacts pooling resources to make sure the precocious little Gerry got the education she deserved.
Well, 1984 didn’t turn out as Orwellian as all that. Gerry Ferraro got plowed under in the landslide rejection of Walter Mondale, (and some shady campaign contributions from her husband’s family), and even as Ronald Reagan went on to term two, an important concept was cemented in my brain.
Though it would be a decade later and another situation entirely, eventually I was able to put together the kinds of ingredients necessary for one of those things working class people aren’t taught in this country. I was able to discern that there was a better way, a way that we lost with our nonsense of rugged individualism peddled in libraries as motivational bullsh— for pre teens. Nope, none of that billy the kid, go west young man nonsense. It took a former elementary school teacher who survived deprivation unimaginable to most, two siblings died young, her father died when she was nine, they lost everything but kept on coming, investing in their best and brightest…
She was an unlikely candidate who passed the bar in 1971, the only female in her law school class. But because her family and circle supported and nourished her, she went to congress and by running for VP, (although losing) paved the way for a female vp.
So what does all that have to do with anything? Ok, lemme lay the Paul Harvey on ya, the rest of the story.
Something else happened that day when I heard Ferraro on the radio. My partner announced she was pregnant. Though it wouldn’t be that child, nor that relationship, I never forgot the image of the immigrant sewing beadwork to send her daughter to catholic school after losing her husband to a heart attack at 45. That lady on the radio, congress, trying to run for VP, tells how everybody pitched in after her father died. They made a Trans generational leap.
It was another decade, another marriage, another child, but by then the concept was clear, kids only get one chance to grow up, and unless parents are either rich or willing to sacrifice for them, kids won’t do as well as they will if you give them the things you didn’t have either.
Fast forward. I’m sixty five. I’m divorced, legally blind, living in a studio apartment. Until recently twenty percent of my income was paying payments on the only new car I ever bought (and I’m not capable of driving it). Why? Because in 2009, as the world economy was skidding, the DOW a disaster, bailouts and whatnot, that my youngest, then fifteen, diligently searching for a career, as instructed by his guidance counselor, asked if I thought he could be a doctor. My mind was screaming “oh hell no!” Terrified of the many roadblocks known and unknown. My mouth said (I’m sure it was without permission from my brain) “of course you can”.
From the bedroom of his boyhood home, a double wide with stained ceilings from roof leaks, then occupied by three generations, combining resources to get by, as every misfortune imaginable from the big C to impending blindness was thrown in our path. Ten years after graduating from high school, six years after graduation with honors from a world class university, four years and half a million in loans to get through medical school, and one little redneck from a poor family in a poor county begins a residency in family medicine in underserved rural areas. He will cut his doctor teeth up at the border.
A trans generational leap. I don’t care who you are, NO, you can’t get there alone, it takes a team and it takes sacrifice. My kid just moved into a shoebox apartment within walking distance from the hospital he will spend his days in for three years. I’m in a studio, divorced, and finally, no more car payments. A trans generational leap. It stuck with me because it wasn’t our script. In my world, if you could buy cigarettes and not get yelled at sipping a beer at a family gathering, you were grown. Figure it out. My High school dropout/GED self went in the military and did college after already supporting a family. My parents stopped supporting kids the minute they left school or turned 18. You didn’t expect help.
So when I tell people in this century old neighborhood, where college students and retirees all struggle that my kid is a doctor, and I finally paid off his car, they can’t quite imagine. They can’t imagine because in our “me-me-me” society, they don’t understand the idea that you can’t simultaneously eat the seed corn and have a record harvest.
A trans-generational leap. It’s what immigrants do, and those of us “born here” often forget. Thanks Ms. Ferraro. You helped me learn what was really important.
This was a great Story. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing.
Jason