Labor Pains

      My brother, Clark, was born when our Dad was the president of the local union that he and his co-workers belonged to. And it just so happened that Dad and the rest of the union were on strike! There were no paychecks coming into the house as Mom did not work

Clark and his big sister

either, at least not full time, because she was home taking care of me.

      I must have been in my late teens when Mom told me this, and I was shocked. Dad and Mom always gave the appearance of having a sure grip on life. It wasn't that they had a lot of money, just that they were careful, and we were always comfortable. The thought that their finances were so precarious when they brought another life into this world was such a surprise – my parents would have had a plan, a safety net. They would not have sailed upon the sea of a labor strike without first knowing how they would pay the bills!

      Mom said that one of my grandfather's paychecks was given to her and Dad after Clark was born to cover bills, like the mortgage, and stress a little less and focus on the new baby.       It was my grandmother who had given the check. That seemed foreign to me too! My grandparents were not stingy by any means, but they did seem the type to believe that we should take the lumps that fate dishes out and be all the better for having done so. Yet they provided this lifeline that Mom never forgot, and then I never did either!

      I have an article about the strike somewhere. Whatever the workers were demanding back then could not have ultimately been as life-changing as what the strike brought about inside our little house on Heinrich Road!

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