~ Cesare Pavese
Katryn went to bed disturbed by her thinking. Dreams of hate and killings dominated her night. Early memories, when she thought of herself as Kat, only intruded as she woke up.
She began and thought she had ended her brief life around politics in junior high. She remembered working on her first speech for that election. Her father tried to help. He was a still a diplomat then. He went over what she'd written for her speech and suggested she add more.
"Katryn, try using This is an age like any age."
"That means exactly what?"
"Well, nothing if you come down to it. It just means it is some kind of period of time."
"I know that! You aren't going to plop that into my speech?"
"Why not?"
"It doesn't say anything."
"It fills space. It sounds good."
"It is useless. I won't use it. I've got to say something that means something."
"No, not really. You have to get attention and sound good getting it."
"I want more that that."
"Every politician does. You really want to be different?"
"Yes."
"Then tell the people the truth."
"Is that really different?"
"Unfortunately, yes. People, especially politicians, lie about anything these days. They always have. They try to create the story they want people to believe. They protect themselves, attack anybody not on their side of the issue, and twist their facts to support their own position."
"But, dad, I'm only running for student council!"
"I know honey. Life as a politician usually starts with some kind of election."
"Did yours?"
"Yes, mine too. I worked behind the scenes with candidates. I never wanted to win an election for myself."
"What did you do?"
"I helped. I wrote speeches. I organized rallies, made phone calls and visited voters, introduced other speakers, and spent hours on the paperwork and every other aspect of the candidates life. I lied for them. As I rose through the party ranks, I learned by doing. I eventually ran campaigns, created the platforms of ideas candidates could use to get elected. I served on more committees than I ever imagined existed.
Whenever a group tried to elect me Chairman, I saw it coming. I had already found another person to serve and worked to promote them to that highly visible position. I stayed in the background. I felt freer there. I could think. I could plan. Most important, I could get candidates elected using the popular issues of the day.
People told me I was persuasive, a go getter, and would be a great candidate." He laughed. "They never persuaded me. When the time came to get a real paying job, I selected the Diplomatic corps. I love the give and take of winning people over to the positions and actions that make government work. I love writing policies and turning ideas into action. I don't like being the big cheese the mice bite, though. That is more than enough about me. This is your election. You have to focus on something important to your voters, if you want to win."
"But foreign languages are important to me. No one seems to care about them."
"Then pick another issue they do care about or find a way to make them care deeply about your issue."
Katryn remembered that first election well. She lost. She lost badly. Her opponent was a popular football player whose goal was to start a Junior Historical Society in her junior high school. Involving students in protecting some of the local treasures that were being neglected, was his claim, not his real goal. He had help developing community support and the local historical society made class presentations for him. He didn't have to do much beyond being nice and talk to people.
Her single goal was to increase the number of languages offered by the school. Only a few of the brighter students were interested. She couldn't and didn't make the other students care. The historical society did. It worked and became a clique of the most popular students in the high school. The star football player drew them in like maggots to spoiled meat. They did some actual work, but everyone in school knew their main goal was to use the new society for parties. They did party a lot and never got caught.
Katryn woke up with that final thought of parties floating through her mind. They never got caught. Later she found out how protected the little group was. The police knew, but never did anything, because they were just kids, was the common understanding, and most expressed opinion, to any challenge. She knew there was more to it. The football player's father was Chief of Police.
Katryn Backtari Johnson had lived all her life as an outsider. Rejected as too light in the 60s, disparaged as non-Muslim in the 70s, when she explored the Koran and Islam, and later denigrated and condemned by Muslims for choosing Christianity. Recently she heard the term mud American used to describe her. She was still too light for many. And not light enough, for others.
Her heritage was Iranian and US, Midwestern. Her historical racial makeup included Black, Asian, White, and American Indian.
She ignored the putdowns and typical insults that denigrated her profession, her person, and her sex year after year. The feelings of hurt were buried deeper. She didn't realize how deep. Her mind knew those who sneered at her as just a girl, or just a woman, or just a mother were short-sighted. Her feelings never recognized that. Her feelings hurt as the expressions clawed at who she was. Those standard comments people continued to throw at her made her angry. She pushed it down and ignored them until she was fed up with all of it. She did not realize how angry she was.
She raised her family, supported a husband, run a smooth household and won National honors as a teacher. But to the world at large, she was just not important enough to worry about. Her fifteen minutes of fame came and went.
As a child, she had always known she was going to do something big. She believed it. She felt she might be able to change the world for the better. But, what changes she could she bring to a needy world? She wasn't sure.
Often in elementary and middle school, she would dream she was a mayor, or in the State legislature, or running a Federal agency. Her own life history restricted her dreams from the low expectations she, and others, placed on herself. Something had to change. It did. She was an adult, living on the edge of economic depression.
Her little safe world fell apart. She lived and taught in Skyrl, Iowa. The small rural town closed down step by step. The cascading effects of the Great American Depression of 2010 closed down her school, her teaching career, and her town. The local angry populace tried to blame her and make her, and others like her, into something they were not: foreigners who were destroying America and the American Dream. It wasn't the first time in history that happened and it would probably happen again down the historical road.
Even now, four years later in July of 2014, thirty-two States, in these United but divided States, were still recovering. The myopia of blame continued. There were too many States with a long way to go before the number of jobs lost during the economic crash of 2010 recovered to pre-crash levels.
The small town of Skyrl Iowa was one of the many victims. The single employer that kept the town afloat was Mercer Manufacturing. Their selling markets dried up overnight. They couldn't resupply their manufacturing materials or sales. The local version of the company quit trying after a few weeks, and closed within six months.
The local farm community desperately rallied to prevent the closing of the school, and the town. Local leaders saw both events coming. It was an impossible situation. Mercer Manufacturing held most of the spots on the school board and the local city council.
Skyrl was a company town while the company was there. The wives and husbands of the manufacturing employees made up the greatest number of twenty-six local teachers and that was that. A few families transferred to other company openings. Most were laid off. The unemployed dispersed to the four winds frantically hunting for work, any kind of work.
The town shut down. The school closed first and people fled to ne
arby larger communities like Newton and Grinnell. Katryn moved home to Texas, to keep her son in school, although it was to new schools in a larger community she had left years ago. She continued to send her resume out for three years with little positive response. She went on welfare. She interviewed, she traveled, she borrowed money to interview and travel. Her new life included any part time job she could find. Her attitude of quiet desperation colored the interviews into bright red "do not hire" flags for potential employers. Her appearance was enough for a few others. She rebuilt her life along different lines.