Notes From The Working Class

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NOTES FROM THE WORKING CLASS: Javon Monte 1994 - 2024

The blue-skied Seattle day is warm for February 8th. I walk across the freeway overpass on Madison Avenue and turn right onto 6th Avenue. A man is huddled on the steps leading up to the Plymouth Congregational Church. The building is the color of a white palace. The man is young, black, lean, but he takes up the entire landing at the bottom of the steps; his battered blue backpack is large and looks heavy. He is crying, sobbing into a blinding-white concrete buttress.


NOTES FROM THE WORKING CLASS: On Courage

Courage is a forgotten virtue. Too often courage is shoved aside and replaced with bluster, anger, and abuse. Just ask the actor Robert De Niro. Outside the courthouse during Donald Trump’s criminal trial, De Niro expressed his fears about what another Trump presidency would bring to America.


Summer Reading: The Big Rich Beach Book

We work hard so we can take a vacation during the summer months. We might spend a week or two lolling about the beaches or hitting the trails through scenic parks and around mountains, straying far upstream from cars, crowds, and cell phones. Some of us stay home because we really can’t afford to go anywhere. Our free time rapidly fritters away like sifting sand in an hourglass. And yet, we are expected to read a book or two. 

 


May 2023 Magazine

Our May 2023 Magazine covers "Do-Gooders" who are making our world a better place to live, work and play. 


NOTES FROM THE WORKING-CLASS: Top Soil

In the 1980s I had the good fortune to attend an event where Sherry Lansing gave the keynote address. She said that as a Hollywood executive, “she was always in search of good talent….and furthermore… that good talent would always rise to the top and be rewarded.” Her comments stayed with me through the years. Sherry Lansing’s perspective is strong and simple. Work hard and reap reward. I believed her then and I believe her now, but there is a flip side to the playing field.