Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [67]
I was given a small single room that belonged to that floor’s resident advisor. He apparently had not moved all of his stuff out. I found a record player and some record albums sitting near the windowsill. I had a few books with me, plus a writing tablet and a pen. It was all I needed to make it through the week. So I essentially deserted Boys State and found refuge in this well-stocked fifth-floor room in the Kellogg Dorms. The album collection in my room included James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James, The Beatles’ Let It Be, the Guess Who’s American Woman, and something by Sly and the Family Stone. There was a big coin-operated snack machine down at the end of the hall, so I had everything I needed for the week.
In between listening to the records and writing poems to amuse myself (I called them “song lyrics” to make them seem like a worthwhile endeavor), I became enamored with a new brand of potato chip that I heretofore had not encountered. The snack machine offered bags of something called “Ruffles” potato chips. I was amazed at how they were able to put hills and valleys into a single chip. For some reason, these “hills” (they called ’em “ridges”) gave me the impression that I was getting more chip per chip than your regular potato chip. I liked that a lot.
On the fourth day inside my NO POLITICS ALLOWED/FIRE AND RAIN bunker, I had completely run out of Ruffles and made a run down the hall for more. Above the snack machine was a bulletin board, and when I got there I noticed someone had stuck a flyer on it. It read:
BOYS STATERS!
SPEECH CONTEST
on the life of
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Write a speech on the life of Abe Lincoln
and win a PRIZE!
Contest sponsored by the
ELKS CLUB
I stood and stared at this flyer for some time. I forgot about my Ruffles. I just couldn’t get over what I was reading.
The previous month, my dad had gone to the local Elks Club to join. They had a golf course just a few miles from where we lived, and he and his linemates from the factory loved to golf. Golf, the sport of the wealthier class, was not normally played by the working class in places like Flint. But the GM honchos had long ago figured out ways to lull the restless workers into believing that the American Dream was theirs, too. They understood after a while that you couldn’t just crush unions—people would always try to start unions simply because of the oppressive nature of their work. So the GM execs who ran Flint knew that the best way to quell rebellion was to let the proles have a few of the accoutrements of wealth—make them think that they were living the life of Riley, make them believe that through hard work they, too, could be rich some day!
So they built public golf courses in and around the factories of Flint. If you worked at AC Spark Plug, you played the I.M.A. or Pierce golf courses. If you worked at Buick you headed over to the Kearsley course. If you worked at the Hammerberg Road plant, you played at Swartz Creek. If you worked in “The Hole,” you played the Mott course.
When the factory whistle blew at 2:30 p.m. every day, our dads grabbed their bags from the car and started whacking balls around (they’d play nine holes and be home for dinner by five). They loved it. Soon working class became “middle class.” There was time and money for month-long family vacations, homes in the suburbs, a college fund for the kids. But as the years went on, the monthly union hall meetings became sparsely attended. When the company started asking the union for givebacks and concessions, and when the company asked the workers to build inferior cars that the public would soon no longer want, the company found they had a willing partner in their demise.
But back in 1970, thoughts like that would get you locked up in the loony bin. Those were the salad days (though I’m certain it was illegal to offer a salad anywhere within a fifty-mile radius of Flint). And the guys in the factory grew to believe that golf was their