By Joe Bageant
In looking back on growing up, I always remember 1957 and 1958 at "the two good years," They were the only years my working class redneck family ever caught a real break in their working lives, and that break came because of organized labor. After working as a farm hand, driving a hicktown taxi part ti me, and a dozen catch as catch can jobs, my father found himself owning a used semi-truck and hauling produce for a Teamster unionized trucking company called Blue Goose.
Daddy was making more money than he'd ever made in his life, about $4,000 a year. The median national household income at the time was $5,000, mostly thanks to America's unions. After years of moving from one rented dump to another, we bought a modest home, ($8,000) and felt like we might at last be getting some traction in achieving the so-called “American Dream.” Yup, Daddy was doing pretty good for a backwoods boy who'd quit school in the sixth or seventh grade -- he was never sure, which gives some idea how seriously the farm boy took his attendance at the one-room school we both attended in our lifetimes.


One of the best things about the hundred or so book festivals in
America is that, with luck, a writer can manage to get drunk with some
of his or her readers. And with more luck, the readers pick up the tab.
Bear in mind that 90% of all real writers, people for whom writing is
their sole income, spend much of their time counting their change in
the rest room of the hotels where they are being put up while on tour.
Believe me, there are better rackets than writing.