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“The Picket Line”
It was May in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, so it might as well have been the middle of August anywhere else. The dog days of summer start before most of us have had enough springtime. I looked down at my Timex watch with the faux leather band, shading my eyes from the sun with one hand and hoisting the wooden sign with the handwritten message, written in block letters on a piece of poster board, over my shoulder with the other.
The picket line went south all the way to the corner of Bellaire Avenue, then wound around westward on Bessemer Street, ending in the school’s parking lot at the corner of Bessemer and Bluebell Avenue. I had two students who lived in houses on Bluebell. Robert lived with his mother and spent his free time playing in the front yard in the hope that his father would drive by and stop to visit with him. Sisters Huong and Hanh — I had both of them in my class because I had a 5th/6th grade split and they had willingly and enthusiastically agreed to being in the same classroom that year — were two doors down and stayed mostly to themselves. Their parents ran a nail shop over on Coldwater Canyon and preferred they stay indoors so as not to call attention to the family.
The work actions leading up to the strike had begun back in the fall. The contract was up and Tim, the union rep at the school wanted the teachers to start preparing early on. I was the…
