What my parents were doing back in the day was really no different from what any parents of a 7 year old back in 1983 (I’ll give my age and that time anyway) was doing, they were working, well, at least my mother was because my father was a retired railroad worker at the time and he was very much relaxing and watching the house. Now my mother on the other hand was working as a housekeeper for a well-to-do doctor in the Hyde Park neighborhood as was doing pretty well for herself and “bringing home the bacon”, as they say when it comes to working and making money to bring home asnd so for.
I on the other hand was in the first grade in the fall of 1983 and I have to say that was one of the best years of my life because I can remember everybody and almost everything I was doing at the time. Chicago had just elected the first African-American mayor, Harold Washington the previous April and the city, well mostly the South and West sides of Chicago and the lakefront neighborhoods were elated and after hearing about the election happenings and the results my parents, other family members and myself were happy, afterall, this IS the 40th anniversary year of Washington’s win and not to change the subject of what the question is asking, I’m just stating that with hard work and determination, making it in life can be more than just “bringing home the bacon”, it’s all about the hard work that parents carry out and is passed on to their child or children and they too can learn from it and be successful. That’s why Washington got elected becuse he represented what my parents represented when they were both alive and raising myself and my older siblings: whether working or in retirement, instilling hard work and perseverence is what makes success more successful…
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