BTW, I didn't want Dickey's post to go unanswered...

Yeah, there was a time when a white guy with a little work ethic could and would make it... While you were living in Alexandria I was living 3 miles up the road in Farlington... Back then it wasn't much different than where you lives... I know... My dad had a good friend who lived down there back in that swampy area 'round the scrap yards...

Like yer dad and just about very dad of everyone in Mudcat who is is on the plus side of the hlaf-centry mark we know that our parents came out of the Depression and WW II and know that in the late 40's and early 50's things turned a round for all of them, providine they were white...

My dad quit school in the 6th grade but went on to have a decent career with the Ford Motor Company... Big deal... So did all the rst of the white dads...

You are copmparin' yer usual apples and oranges...

Heck, fir that matter, congressmen lived in our neighborhood in the 50's in the same 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom houses that we finally moved into when I was in the 3rd grade...

I mean, you seem to be trying to say that thease days are the same... They very much are not... The system isn't goin' to ***allow*** much upward mobility... Downward mobilty, however, seems to be just what the "system" has in mind for everyone but the upper 1%... Just like Haiti...

Bobert