DEATH OF A DREAM--

I was enjoying a campfire with new friends one recent evening when the pain of the announced closing of our GM plant struck close to home.

A young single mother at our campfire heretofore had enjoyed the bounty of several decades of employment with the auto giant--a very nice home in a desirable, suburban neighborhood; a shiny and relatively new SUV in the driveway.

“I have wonderful neighbors there, and over there,” she explained. “My babysitter lives across the street and that man,” she pointed, “fixes everything that breaks in my house.”

The community pool nearly touches her property. “The neighborhood kids can romp in that mowed field and really enjoy the creek right over there. The local school system is excellent.” she sighed.

“This is wonderful and irreplaceable and I’m scared.”

She did not cry but I think tears were close.

There is a remote chance of a transfer to another GM plant—somewhere. But she knows a friend who took that chance.

He sold his home in awful market conditions, was forced to hurry off to the new town and take a year’s lease on an apartment—only to learn he wasn’t so lucky after all. GM had made a mistake and he did not have that new job. Sorry!

She’s been offered a buy-out but it and chances of other local employment are inadequate to sustain her and service a mortgage and buy hospitalization and watch a daughter grow into young womanhood in her idyllic slice of suburbia.

Yes, she has had the good fortune of the excellent wages and benefits GM has been known for. But, she has played by the rules. This is not her fault.

She still goes to work each day but knows with painful clarity her American dream is about to be crushed.