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Hope springs eternal
Asking Jerry Lucas to come back to be honored—belatedly, of course—was the first step in the rehabilitation of what was once a place we all wanted to be from.
Of course, it was built on a fantasy of sorts. A steel mill that provided good wages and the promise of an eternal city on the hill. There were 8,000 people earning substantial paychecks from making steel that went into a lot of things, including auto bodies. As kids, we all wanted to grow up and join the ranks where our grandfathers, fathers, and other siblings worked. Once we got on at The Mill, we could afford a new car, a house in what was probably suburbia, not really all that far from where we worked. And good health care and a pension that was the envy of those who worked elsewhere in the city.
We also could count on our own hospital, also the envy of other smaller communities, a real downtown with real stores and places to grab a meal, or see a first run movie, probably a double bill, for a dime¸ a locally owned bus company that would takes us downtown or uptown or about anyplace in town. While our streets weren’t paved with gold, they were paved. The arts thrived, thanks to Armco executives and other patrons of the arts, a school district that offered something for everyone whether the students were headed for steelmaking or college.
Of course, there were a number of Jerry Lucases, with different names, who played basketball or football or baseball for the Mighty Middies, the toast of the high school sports world.
Life was good.
Then the Magic began to disappear and group after group tried to bring it back. The latest incarnation of group therapy is making another attempt to bring it back again. It’s one of dozens that have surfaced over the past two decades. There are dozens of reports and suggestions lying fallow in boxes somewhere that detail what needed to be done. No doubt they are yellowed with the passage of time. Once in a while somebody probably finds a copy of one of those reports and attempts to recycle it under the heading of A New Idea.
Sitting on my front porch—yes, people still do that trying to recapture some of the magic of the past—we wave at passerby who are breaking the speed limit to get somewhere or nowhere while they talk to spouses or girl or boyfriends or to anyone they find at home or work to make a human connection. Others sit at work or home or school texting anyone who can read.
Many people still do the same things they’ve always done. Go to work. Go to the supermarket. Go to McDonald’s. Hoping that they won’t soon be applying for unemployment benefits. Maybe buying a lottery ticket just in case. Or perhaps visiting an attorney to put a finish to the past and hoping for a new start.
Too many houses stand empty. A few here and there are being sold at a reduced price, some are being forclosed only to be recycled through a Sheriff’s sale. Complaints about things like lousy streets, lousy neighbors who won’t keep up their property, the bums they feel are in public office, locally, state-wide or nationally. There are questions like:
Why doesn’t the federal government do something about things? After all, our new president has been in office for nearly 100 days—didn’t FDR solve the problems in a similar amount of time?
Retirees and laid off workers sit in places like McDonald’s, sipping on all you can drink coffee for 50 cents, talking about the stock market and how their stocks have fallen from $90 to $1.25—good companies like GE, General Motors and Ford, Proctor & Gamble—or their 401Ks that are practically worthless. “Hey, did you see that AK Steel is now at 12?” “Do you think this means they’ll be back to 60 one day?”
There are many other questions, of course. However, they all pale when it comes to talk of the economy. “Seen any bankers jump out of windows?” “You can get a new car with all those rebates pretty cheap, can’t you?” “You call $34,000 cheap? Wait a few months and they’ll be giving them away.”
And so it goes.
Sure, we’ll be back. Hopefully, it’s before folks start pitching tents at Sunset Park or Smith Park. Got a dime, brother?
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