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Yep, Joe had it made it seemed. He supported the Republican party, voted straight ticket for years, and raised his two children to do the same. Things seemed pretty good to Joe. He had no real complaints to speak of.
Then, one day Joe was at his office and he got a call from his father. Joe's father was in the hospital and was very ill. Joe spoke to his boss and left his office right away for the hospital. Joe arrived at the hospital and was asked to sign a responsibility statement for his father's medical care. It seems that the Republicans had not backed the value of the medicare program that Joe's father had always relied upon and it would no longer cover the charges for the care that Joe's father needed. Joe was surprised, but signed the statement so his father would get the care he needed. Joe would just have to cut back a bit on his Starbucks and his dinners out to cover these costs. No problem, thought Joe, his father was worth it.
When Joe returned home that day, there was a letter from his daughter's university. It told Joe that government financial support had been cut for their institution. Pell grants would not be able to cover the gap any longer and Joe would have to pay more out of pocket if his daughter, Julie, was to be able to continue to attend. No problem, thought Joe, he would just cut out the movies and the concessions as well as those season passes to his favorite sports team games and the donations he made to the local charities. After all, his daughter was worth it.
Joe's wife, Mary, comes home and tells him that she has been lucky at work. Seems the office where she works has just taken a fifty percent cut in staffing and Mary would not be losing her job after all. She would, however, be cut to 15 hours a week, she would lose her benefits and her pay would now be the same rate as what she was paid when she began there 15 years before. No problem, thought Joe, we will just have to save some money by commuting into town together, packing their lunches and not taking any vacation trips for a while, until things got back to normal for them.
Joe's son, Mark, had spent his summer working as an intern at the local news station. He liked his job, although it didn't pay him anything at all, he saw it as a way to break into the business. His journalism degree assured him that someday he would be an on screen personality. He had covered a few local political gatherings and wanted to someday cover the national news from all over the world. He had applied for a position as a reporter in Iraq, determined to send home all the "good news stories" that he thought didn't get the attention that they deserved. Joe and Mary were proud of Mark and knew that he would do well if he got the job.
Meanwhile, Joe's father was getting worse and the bills were mounting up. Joe thought it might be time to put his father in a nursing home for a while. Joe called around and found that many facilities couldn't count on his father's medicaid to pay those bill either. In order to put him into a home, he would have to sell the farm. Joe was heartbroken and decided to try to pay the bill himself. After all, it was only going to be short term, right? Joe would just have to manage the farm on the weekends and hope that the extra money he made from the things he could produce would make up the difference.
Joe's boss was getting a little upset with all the time that Joe had to take off from work in order to attend to his father's care. He reminded Joe that he was not to miss any more days at work or they would have to replace him. No problem, Joe thought, his wife would just have to take up the slack and make sure that he was cared for properly. After all, she wasn't working as much now and she could take the time to do these things for him. Joe couldn't afford to lose his job now.
By the time the holidays came around it appeared that things were holding their own for Joe. Mark had gotten that job he wanted but hadn't filed too many stories because he couldn't leave his hotel room in the green zone. He often wrote home to tell them that things were not exactly as he thought they would be from the descriptions that he had heard at his Young Republican meetings. Mark was excited though, because he knew that he would be embedded with a unit just after the holidays and he was sure that those hopeful stories could still make the airwaves by the beginning of the new year.
Julie was coming home for the holidays and she would help out at the farm and with grandpa too. Joe had taken a second job at night to help support the mortgages and usual bills for both houses. He was earning just enough pumping gas at night to keep the wolves from the door. He didn't see Mary too often, except on the weekends when they worked the farm together if he wasn't pumping gas. They did visit Joe's father every Sunday though, and they took him to church with them. Joe's donation was smaller this year than last year, but he still gave all he could to the church. He tried not to let his father know how tight things had gotten all the same. He hoped to bring his father home soon, as he was doing some better now. As soon as Joe could afford that visiting nurse, that's just what he would do too.
The holidays were quiet at home and not the same type of celebration that they had remembered from the past. There were the usual parties to attend, but even they were not as they had remembered. Joe's boss gave them all WalMart gift certificates this year instead of a large cash bonus which he had done in the past. No problem, thought Joe, I'll get a gift for Mary and Julie and Pop there this year. Since his time was limited, the idea of one stop shopping appealed to him. It would be a treat since Mary hadn't bought anything new for herself since the early spring of the year before when her hours were cut. It wasn't as nice as the things she was used to, but new is new and she would be grateful to have it. Something new to wear to church would be wonderful.
Just after New Years Day, they got a letter from Mark. He would be out of touch for a while as he was finally getting to go out of the green zone and would send pictures as soon as he could. Julie prepared to return to school and Mary was going to miss her help around the farm too. Heating and electric bills were stretching their budget even tighter now. Joe took a second mortgage out on their house in hopes of keeping things afloat a while longer. the nursing home was getting too expensive to continue and even though they didn't have a nurse, his father would have to come home to stay soon. Mary found a friend nearby to help her care for him and the farm. They paid her everything that Joe earned at his second job but it was worth every penny.
Joe's father was taking his medication everyday until the new medicine plan came along. Mary had begun to cut the pills in half and just keep a closer eye on him instead. He had begun to eat less and less and she was very worried. The farm was costing Joe and Mary more money than they were making from it but Pop wanted to spend his last days at the farm he loved so much that they wanted to give that to him too.
In March, the news came that Mark had fallen at a bloody battle in Iraq. Joe and Mary were heartbroken. They had believed that he had died doing what he loved. His things were shipped back home and Mary went through them tearfully. She came upon his diary and his pictures. She opened them greedily, searching for the good news Mark had promised. What she saw was not what she expected. What she read turned her blood cold. Mark had left his message very clearly, this was not the war he had been told by his republican hawk friends that we were fighting at all. He was questioning his stand on the war and on his party that sold it to him all tied up in a red, white and blue ribbon. He hadn't failed to send home those good stories he had promised. Instead he had failed to find any to send.
Joe couldn't keep up the payments on his mortgage and soon foreclosure would be a reality. Julie had been told that unless she found some scholarships and a job to help pay for college, this would be her last semester for now. Perhaps she could return next year when things began to look up again. She would have to come home and help out the family for now.
Joe was driving from his office to the gas station one night and turned on the radio. He heard voices that were familiar but he couldn't relate to the message any longer. Just who are these people that talk about how great the economy is, how jobs are plentiful, how medicare and medicaid is less expensive for the government now but still as good, or better, for the people that need it? Who were these people that he had helped get elected that had taken his bankruptcy safety net away from him? He wondered just what country these people were living in now because it was no longer the country that Joe lived in. He wept as he drove, realizing that the republican party was not his party anymore. He changed the channel. He happened upon a woman that he had never heard speak before and he listened closely. She was speaking about the very things that he was dealing with, but in a way he had never heard his republican talk show hosts speak. She spoke of corruption in the government, the money wasted on a war for lies, the difficulty of people trying to make a living while struggling with medical bills, and the fleecing of our seniors with the new medicare plans. He thought he finally found a voice that spoke for him. He couldn't wait to tell Mary about this woman named Randi.
Three weeks later, they changed their registration from R to D. It didn't make all their troubles go away, but it was a step towards that end for them. They both slept better that night.
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