#25: I'm good and tired.

I guess I'm no George fucking Bailey.

I kinda wanted to be. I live in the right kind of place: a small town that claims to have small town values. I have the right kind of job: a school teacher, one who helps people, who helps children, in one of the most profound and lasting ways that a person can help another in this day and age: educating them. I am a good person, and I live a good life. Admittedly, the small town where I live is not the one in which I grew up, nor the one in which my parents grew up, and while I teach other people's children, I don't have any of my own to share in the long term fate of this community. Then there's the fact that I don't have a George Bailey personality: I'm not much of a joiner. I don't do everything I can to help other people, I don't belong to a church, I don't sacrifice myself on the altar of altruism. I have a life of my own, and I mean to keep it, come Hell or high water (And isn't that a lovely phrase that we don't use often enough?).

But then, should those things matter? George Bailey is a good person, who tries to do the right thing; because of that, the town comes out in his hour of need and saves him. Pretty simple concept, isn't it? So my question is, what exactly are the criteria for becoming such a pillar of the community? How much must one do for other people, and how little can one get in return, before everyone shows up at your door to throw cash in a punch bowl while singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing?" "It's a Wonderful Life" doesn't show the Baileys belonging to any particular church; sure, they pray and God sends His angel Clarence to save George's life while he contemplates suicide, but they don't make a thing of the Baileys belonging to any congregation, nor the Elks nor the Rotary nor the Knights of Columbus. George doesn't give to others with the intention of gaining anything in return; the point of the movie is that he doesn't realize how much he has given to others, not until the angel shows him life without him. He gains joy from the things he sacrifices for: while he wants to travel and be an architect, there seems to be moments of joy in his work; they certainly have fun when they dance around, celebrating the defeat of the bank run, and again when George's war hero brother comes home. And any place that has a pet raven in the office can't be too bad of a work environment. Apart from that, he gains a wonderful wife and sweet children -- even if that one kid can't learn a simple piano melody without a thousand repetitions. And really, ZuZu -- do you not know that he put your petals in his pocket? Are you unfamiliar with the concept of pockets?

So while I don't have faith in the Lord to lose, and we're not fighting through the Great Depression or a World War -- and believe me, I am most assuredly not contemplating suicide -- it doesn't seem too far fetched a comparison. Maybe I could be as valued by my community as was good ol' George. I guess I didn't prevent an accidental poisoning, and my brother didn't save a transport full of Our Boys from them damn Nips, but I have helped. I have sacrificed. I have done things for others out of kindness, and have expected nothing in return -- and this rant aside, I still don't expect anything in return, and that's not why I was kind nor why I continue to be. I think I have been a benefit to this community, in more ways than just being a teacher here -- though honestly, that should be enough. I think people reach too far in both directions when it comes to teacher appreciation, with some people thinking teachers are the saviors of all mankind (We aren't.), and others thinking teachers are the downfall of man (We aren't.), but in the end, the work that I do is important, and the role that I play for my students is valuable in ways that other people aren't usually aware of; the effort that I put into both work and role, and the price that I pay for giving that effort, are considerable. I don't want a parade -- but I and my colleagues deserve one.

But instead of a parade, and instead of my neighbors spreading word through the grapevine that I need cash and a surprise caroling (and instead of my old buddy, the Lord of All Plastics, offering me whatever sum of money I require just because we had an incredibly annoying animal-sound-greeting when we were twelve), I get, well, not much. I do get some things, and I don't mean to be unappreciative; too, I realize my need is not as great as what others face, especially all those teachers who lost their jobs. Just as I help others, particularly at work, others help me: Jay Groom took over the recycling program for me this year, and Tom Fuller agreed to teach LA 11 so I wouldn't have to have three preps next year, and Mike Herdrich's auto shop is the only reason I still have a vehicle in good working order. But then there's the school board, which seems determined to screw the teachers in negotiations. And the community, which voted down our levy, which would have saved the school board from feeling the need to screw us in negotiations. That was your chance to throw money in the punch bowl, St. Helens, and you blew it.

The worst does not fall on me. It falls on Toni. This community has done everything but spit in her Cheerios and ride her out of town on a rail. Okay, she's not a teacher, only married to a teacher, but she still tried to help -- she volunteered for the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee organized by the City of St. Helens, and served for a year, and she tried to volunteer to help the local animal shelter, but was effectively brushed off. But she's the one who deals with the cost of all of the sacrifices that I make for my community, for my students and my school; she's the one who doesn't get any vacations, who sleeps on a lumpy bed, who loses fun time with me because of the demands of my work. She is an artist trapped in a community that doesn't care, at all, about art, and that has absolutely no support, no art community, no outlet for her to do any work, unless she wants to join the retired hobbyist landscapers in painting trashcans with poorly rendered images of fish. She has tried, more than a dozen times, for years, to get work to supplement my income, even though she has a career of her own; because it is this community that underpays me (and all of my teacher colleagues) and she is trying to make it easier for our family to survive here, I consider that an attempt to help this town. And she has been denied every job she has tried for, no matter how qualified, how overqualified, she is for the position. Why? Because this is not "It's a Wonderful Life," and she is not Mrs. George Bailey. Because she is not from St. Helens, she is from California, which makes her anathema to Oregonians. Because she is not related to everyone around here, as everyone around here is related to each other, and so she cannot get bumped to the front of the line because the employer goes to church with her first cousin's nephews. Because she does not have many small children in tow, and so of course she does not need the job as much as Octomom, over there.

And now? Now we have to pay more for our roof. The teacher who was going to help me put it on myself has backed out, and I need to hire a contractor. I don't blame him, not at all; I don't want to give up my vacation pounding nails into my own shingles, let alone someone else's, and I have recently retracted a favor I had offered to do for a (future) fellow teacher, serving as her master teacher next year, because of my own selfish need to sleep. No, wait: I blame him because I asked him about the roof last spring, and he told me then that he didn't want to be roofing any more; then this last fall, he offered, unsolicited, to give me a bid and help me out, and now he's backing out of it a second time. I blame him for that, because now I'm in a timing crunch, hoping I can find a roofer who can do the job this summer without breaking my bank. Bank, hah -- without using up all of my remaining credit. But for not wanting to do the job? Hell, I sympathize.

But this isn't about blame, because nobody has actively done us any harm. There is no Mr. Potter hanging around perpetrating evil while sounding vaguely like Burgess Meredith playing the Penguin on the old Batman show. And apart from the cathartic value of bitching, this isn't really about my trials and travails. I just wish that I lived in a place that helped me as I help this community. That recognized me as an asset, as a worthwhile member. That acted like a small town is supposed to act, at least according to Hollywood: helping each other out, caring for each other, being interested in each other, rather than driving on by in our oversized pickups, too fast on a residential street, while people are walking their dogs. I wish I lived in a place where people were as good to me as I am to them.

I wish such a place existed. Republican political speeches aside, I don't believe it does -- and I doubt it ever has (Though that doubt is somewhat leavened by the fact that I know my mother belongs to a community that is much like that, in the small town of Grapeview, Washington, where she grew up. Then again: her community members aren't rallying around my mother, helping her scrape moss off her roof and cut back the brush that has overgrown her driveway.). In this small town, as far as I can tell, the only thing the entire community rallies around is high school sports, which remain funded even as teachers get laid off. Otherwise, we are supposed to rely on our family members, rather than on the people we actually live next to; I should be calling up my father and my brother to help me put my roof on, right? That's what everyone else does. That's who you can rely on: blood.

See, that's the message of that movie, though. That it doesn't have to be blood. That there doesn't have to be an assumed obligation for people to be willing to help each other, that we can and should do it out of the kindness of our hearts, out of simple gratitude for simple kindness. I get that people shouldn't be expected to make a great sacrifice for me, just because I teach their kids English; I wouldn't make a great sacrifice for them, wouldn't give up my home or my family or my life for the people in my community. But I'm not looking for a great sacrifice. I want someone to hold a fundraiser for my school district. I want people -- other than teachers -- to show up at the school board meetings and argue for the teachers, instead of for sports or for one specific program that their specific kid loves. I want people to support me as I support them, and apart from the selfish side of things, I want to live in a world where people help each other out, just because it's the right thing to do. I hate that I have to sacrifice just because I want to do the right thing. I have hated seeing my students and former students realizing that they will have to do the same thing in their lives, that they will end up with the short end of the stick, carrying the heavy load, if they want to be a good person and do the right thing. Because people don't help each other out: people take advantage of each other. That's really what's going on with the school board, with the levy vote: people expect that teachers will continue to give their all to the children of the community because they know that we believe in the value of what we do, and that we do our best even if we don't get paid commensurately. They are counting on that, and trying to milk it for all it's worth, while they continue living the life that they want, looking out for themselves and their loved ones.

While I lose sleep because I have to find a way to negotiate a settlement with the school board that doesn't want to pay me for my work. And I have to find a roofer, and figure out how I'm going to pay for it. And I am tempted to just tell this community to fuck off, that I will look out for me and mine, and you can all just stay the hell out of my way. Except that would make me no better than they are, and I know that I must be the change that I want to see in the world.

So here's what I'll do instead. I will keep doing my job as well as I possibly can. I will finish the contract negotiations (And I am fully aware, and very grateful, that I am not negotiating alone, that I have a team with me, and that I have the full support of my fellow union members. Just not the community we serve.), and I will try to help save as many jobs and as many school programs as can be saved, in order to better serve the community that wouldn't vote to pay me. I will continue to pick up trash I see in the street, and I will buy the local paper despite its sometimes poor reporting, and I will keep my mouth shut when idiots light off their infernal fireworks on the day after my birthday, despite the fire risk and the fact that it scares my dog and the sheer titanic stupidity of putting explosives into the hands of anyone with five bucks and a Bic. And just as soon as I can -- which won't be very soon -- I will move away with my family, and hope that the next place will be closer to that probably impossible ideal: a place to live where the people are, not better, not worse, but just as good as I am.