Plaid Illusions

I grew up in a town that was part blue collar and part white collar.  In high school, there was this grand illusion.  Some of my classmates had parents who worked shifts at the plant.  Others had jobs in the professional sector.  At school, you could not tell the difference.  The doctor's kids came to school with plaid shorts and polo shirts.  The shift workers kids came to school with plaid shorts and polo shirts.  They partied together, they played sports together, they attended rally's together and they graduated together.  I wasn't in the crowd, but I did have the sense to know that the doctor's kids and I were not on the same plane.  We weren't in the same field.  I way out of their league.  I knew that I was not going to be successful without a college education and staying out of trouble.  What good would a college education do me if I was in jail or pregnant.  The shift workers were not like that, they really thought that they were equal to the kids with professional parents.  When I returned to my high school for my ten year reunion, life had dealt some heavy blows.  Two of my classmates were doctors.  That did not surprise anyone.  One of my classmates went to West Point.  That did not surprise us.  I showed up as a teacher with Reverend on the front of my name.  NO ONE was surprised.  The group that we were surprised by, were the kids of the shift workers.  The nineties was cruel as we saw one factory after another head for the border.  Those whose parents took shifts instead of going to college, were left jobless.  Their children woke up from the dream and landed in a nightmare.  Though they wore plaid shorts, they did not have secure futures and they were too busy with their IZOD jackets to notice it.  By the time our twenty year rolled around, most of the shift workers were in low paying jobs, self-employed or in prison.  You would be amazed at how many were in prison.  Some were just wandering around town trying to be twenty-one all over again.  I can hear them now, "If I knew then what I know now............."