20 August 2007

USW Strike Bulletin # 10


In a roadside cafe I had never before visited, though I had passed it perhaps a thousand times, a man sat eating his dinner watching the news on the small tv above the bar in the corner. He had long black and grey hair that hung below a dirty baseball cap emblazoned with the logo of a struck logging company.

When Sonja and I ordered our dinner and a beer for me, red wine for Sonja, I asked our waitress to bring a beer over to my brother in the dirty cap. He said, "Thanks," to me when the waitress did as she was asked. I told him, "I'm on strike same as you. We gotta break those motherfuckers."

"Oh, we'll break those assholes alright. It is just a matter of fucking time. Until then the fishing's been fine and hunting season's coming right up. And if the union and those hateful bastards don't see eye to eye until next summer that's just the way it goes. The boss can fuck right off."
When he was done he clomped out of the cafe in his clean cowboy boots and jumped into his pick-up. His two dogs licked his face and he smiled and drove away. It was good to be reminded I was on the side of a man whose dogs loved him as much as those two dogs did.

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