The Middle Class

 I'm scanning family photos from the 1950s and 1960s. It's fun to look back. It's also a keen look inside early 1960s middle class life. My family lived in Chicago's Roseland neighborhood. A lot of the homes were owned by guys working in heavy industry jobs; U.S. Steel South Works, Republic Steel, Sherwin Williams, many others. Union jobs that paid a wage allowing families to live in a middle class neighborhood. That all came to a screeching halt when heavy industry shut its doors, and the nearby neighborhoods fell apart. Horrible urban decay. A young activist named Barack Obama looked at the decline of Roseland and decided to do something about it. Roseland has come back around. Not completely, but Obama pointed people in the right direction. I still watch what's going on in Roseland, and wish them better days.