— OCCUPY PIX

#union #iww #ows #p2 #tlot #tcot What I Learned from Pa Sheats http://open.salon.com/blog/working_class_heroes/2012/04/05/what_i_learned_from_pa_sheats My maternal grandfather was a big man. A lifelong coal miner, spare time butcher, he and his strong and bold bride raised twelve kids. I guess times were different then. By the time I was big enough to visit and stay with Pa Sheats, my grandparents lived in a small coal town in southwestern Pennsylvania. Harry was his name, and he had mined coal a long time. He also fought for his union and his co-workers. He was a personal acquaintance of John L. Lewis, and the neighbors in this small town called him Mr. Harry. They were not like you and me, they were mostly “hunkies.” That made no difference to him though, he even learned to speak enough of their language to help them survive in a time of ‘the company store’ and worker exploitation. He had been the president of their UMWA local and intended to fulfill all of the duties he believed came with that job. I don’t remember any of it actually happening, but often listened intently as my mom and aunts and uncles told stories of the community and of the “hunkies” coming to Mr. Harry for his help in butchering the hogs that would feed their families for months to come. And while I grew with an insatiable love of baseball and hunting and fishing, it wasn’t until years later that I understood that he had plainly never had time for those things in his life. He taught me about the Union and the company. Working folks and rich people. Big and little. Us and them. Again, some of it I wouldn’t understand until much later, but Pa Sheats had taught me much. Across the street from my grandparents house (and a dirt street at that) was a store; the one-time company store, long since turned from that into a combination Post Office/convenience store. On a visit in the late 1950’s when I was about five years old, Pa Sheats gave me a quarter and sent me to the store for a loaf of bread – nearly an extravagance at the time, but my grandmother had fallen ill, and no longer baked all of their bread. When I got to the store I discovered that there was two kinds of bread… one for nineteen cents, and one for twenty one cents. I wasn’t very old then, but I was smart enough to know that if I bought the nineteen cent loaf of bread, I would have enough money to buy a candy bar as well. So with my purchases in hand and my penny change, I marched back across the street to show Pa Sheats just how smart I was. Wouldn’t he be proud of me! Surprise, surprise. Life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. Even for five year olds. However, on that day, Harry Sheats taught me a lesson I would never forget. One that I have tried to pass on to my own kids, one I have shared with whoever would listen. Pa Sheats took me by the arm, led me, my candy bar, my loaf of bread & my penny change back across the street to the store, where I returned the nineteen cent loaf of bread and my candy bar. We then purchased the twenty one cent loaf of bread and had four cents change, which Pa Sheats gladly gave to me, but which did not quite buy a candy bar. The moral of the story? Obviously, the twenty one cent loaf of bread was Union made. That day, that moment, that reason and purpose has never left me. United we stand, divided we beg. Harry Sheats was a working class hero!http://www.twitpic.com/b49144