I’m fascinated by how many of us Maryland radicals turned our backs on the white collar professional world college was supposed to send us to. For example, my parents were both New Deal era low income people who caught the 1950’s boom and with help from the GI Bill, Veterans housing and hard work took me from inner city DC, to working class Glenmont and then to the split-level suburbs of Silver Spring.

But even in college, all I could focus on was how I could use that education as some kind of weapon against the rightwing. After losing a couple of teaching jobs for being a loudmouthed obnoxious radical, I drifted into various hippie-style labor jobs.

Then when I finally went back to school, got an MA and started teaching fulltime again around 1980, I only wanted to teach in working class neighborhoods. Somehow I fit in there. I can’t even explain why. I guess I did OK, because I got good evaluations and even was nominated for a couple of teaching awards.

When I think about the Maryland people that I was really close to, a lot of them have stories with some similarities.

I’m no sociologist, but it’s something I want to understand better…