Attended Greater Greater Washington Happy Hour In College Park

Last month, I attended a Greater Greater Washington happy hour event at a place called Milk Boy Art House in College Park, Maryland. I had a good time. I have attended these events in the past, and that night, being like most of these events, I was more than likely the only conservative in the room. Most of the attendees at these events are urban professionals that are in the planning, nonprofit, and advocate/victimhood industries; these industries, and they are industries despite their claim, tend to attract liberal social justice warriors and Marxist control freaks to their ranks. At this event, there were also several attendees that were running for the Prince George's County County Executive job in the upcoming election. All of them were liberal Democrats. Despite our political differences, I do enjoy their company, and occasionally, we do find that we have common ground. Two areas are affordable housing and public transportation.

I have always been a big fan of public transportation, ever since I took my first ride on the Boston subway system when I was a young kid. Once or twice a year, when my family drove up to the Boston area from Hartford, Connecticut, to visit my mother's brothers and sisters, my father and I would have a father/son bonding experience spending the day riding the Boston "T." We might make a couple of stops at the Museum Of Natural History and/or the Boston Aquarium. Most of the time, though, we would just ride around on the subway and eat junk food from the vendor stalls that sold their wares on the train platforms (yes, at that time, you could eat on the platforms), and use the really gross, dirty bathrooms at the stations when nature called. No wonder my mom never joined us. However, it was a great time for a father/son catch up. It was a cheap way to spend a day bonding. I think the fare at one time was 10 cents.

Another area where I agree with the GGW crowd is affordable housing. We do tend to disagree with what is considered affordable. I realize that we live in a high cost area, but I don't consider spending 35% to 45% of your take home income on housing affordable.

This is going to shock a lot of my conservative friends, but I am a big advocate of employer provided housing as part of your compensation package. I spent 26 years in the military, and I'll tell you this: The military does take care of its own. The military provides housing on base for both single personnel as well as families. If there is nonavailability, or a housing allowance is one of the perks of the job, the military provides you with a tax free allowance for housing, that is variable based on the cost of living for the area where you are stationed.

My father taught school in Farmington, Connecticut. He taught US History, English, Geography, and Civics at the junior high school level. He also had a Masters Degree. At that time, teaching was one of the lowest paying professions, even with a Masters Degree. The junior high school and high school were in the same cluster of buildings. Across the parking lot were what were called the "barracks." The barracks were teacher provided housing. He had to be at work at 7:30 AM, and he would leave the house at 7:28 AM and still be early for work. He would also come home every day for lunch. At the time, my mother didn't work, nor did she need to...and despite a low teachers' salary, they were able to save up enough money for a down payment on the only house they would ever own.

There were quite a few sacrifices living in the barracks. First of all, there was no central heat. There was a kerosene space heater in the kitchen that provided heat for the entire unit. You had to keep the doors open, and run fans to send the warm air from the heater to the outlying bedrooms. The kitchen had a 4 burner electric stove with 3 working burners. There was an old fashioned wringer washing machine that was in the corner of the kitchen, and my mom used to roll it to the middle of the floor, attach it to the sink, and do her laundry, which was then taking outside and hung up on a clothesline. If you needed a dryer, you drove to the laundromat in the center of town. There was also no air conditioning in the summer. You ran fans, and you roasted. The barracks were two long rows of housing, back to back. Today, they would be considered slums. Yet, somehow we survived. It is common for many of the elite private schools in this country to provide faculty housing on campus. Maybe it is time for the governments and industry to start doing the same.