Curley: Senator says ‘no one builds alone,’ but the government didn’t sleep on wet concrete

Somebody sent me this the other day, and asked, “What do you think about this?”

This is Washington Senator Vandana Slatter from the 48th.

“My district will contribute the most, the most dollars, a quarter of the total of this tax; 2,300 people out of 165,000 or so in my district, that’s 11% of the 20,000 who are slated to pay this tax out of 8 million people in this state. That is real,” she said. “But I’ve also heard from the 98% of my community and from voices that matter, that workers who are worried about layoffs, teachers who are buying supplies out of pocket, seniors stretched on fixed incomes, parents who can’t afford child care, and small business owners who are struggling to keep the lights on.”

“And yes, I’ve also heard from people of means, people of means who want to pay this tax, and those who are asking, ‘Why should I pay more? I earned it? Will it be spent wisely? Why should I stay in Washington?’ I’ve heard them too, but here’s the truth, and you’ve heard it here on the floor: No one builds alone, not a company, not an industry, not a community,” she continued. “Public schools educate the workforce. We have one of the best workforces in our nation, in the world, I would argue. Universities spark research, infrastructure, move goods, roads, ports. Health care keeps people strong enough to show up, and government has been a partner in that success.”

OK, remember that part that nobody does it alone, and the government is your partner.

$80, a station wagon, and a dream

Let me tell you a little story.

Four young men pull all their money together, and they pile into the back of a 1953 Ford station wagon. They’ve heard there’s money to be made in the Pacific Northwest. So they leave Tennessee behind.

One of the four knew how to drive a stick shift and did most of the driving. He had $80 folded and stuffed deep in his pocket. He was the richest of the four. During his summer, in high school, he worked 80 hours a week, in the fall and the winter evenings, in the basement with his mother. He put together tiny plastic sheets that would go over the windshields of cars to stop the frost from forming. His mother sewed, and he did the packing, and then he did the selling. The money that he made was his own because he had invented this handy-dandy little device, and he sold it for $1.90.

They drove Route 66 to avoid the snow. The four made it to Seattle. It turned out to be a good idea to get a station wagon, because all four of them had to sleep in it together. But the constant rain and the lack of direction peeled away three, and they headed back to the warmth and safety of their home in Tennessee. Only one young man kept going. He was tall and thin. What he lacked in size, he made up for with grit and an unbreakable will to make it someday to make something of himself.

Others quit. He kept working.

He would work two or three jobs. Went without food, often. Luck and the kindness of strangers were often in short supply. He heard that there was money to be made as well, this time up in Alaska, fishing. So he went down to the docks at Ballard, and he slept under a boat on the concrete ground and begged anybody for a job, but since he wasn’t Scandinavian or Croatian, chances of being hired on a crew were slim to none.

But a friend took pity on him, said, “I can get you on a crew, but I gotta warn you, it’s not the easiest job. It’s 15 hours a day in the bottom of a boat with temperatures below freezing, you pick up 15-pound blocks of ice, crabs encased in it, and then you stack it, and you smash it with a piece of metal.”

The one man from Tennessee, the guy who decided not to go home to where it was safe, put on a pair of long johns, two pairs of jeans, as many shirts and coats as possible, and still be able to lift his arms over his head.

Often, men quit. Often, men drank, were fired, or kept drinking. But he didn’t. He saved his money, stayed sober, and kept working. One day, he bought a boat, a boat that no one else would touch, because everyone else had some common sense. He got his hands on some raggedy nets, and he headed out. He saw a man burned to death, another drowned.

He made and lost and made and lost and made and lost some more. He risked his life and all of his savings, everything. He dropped nets. He pushed his boats to the limits, but he didn’t seem to have many.

An idea that changed the fishing industry

One day, it hit him, why not catch the crabs and process them on a boat rather than handing them off? Others might have had the same idea that he had, but they didn’t do it. Maybe it was fear, maybe lack of will or money, but they didn’t do it. No one else did. But the man from Tennessee, who’s not like the others, catching and processing on the same boat had never been done before. It was revolutionary. It changed the entire fishing industry.

Remember all four from Tennessee left on that spring day in 1961 and used the roads the government had built with the taxes they had taken. All four of them had benefited from the public schools with the taxes taken, all four used the infrastructure the government had built with the taxes taken, and all four equally benefited from the taxes that they paid.

The government was not his partner

But here’s the truth, senator: Only one of the four who learned in the schools and drove on the roads and crossed the bridges, only one, a 19-year-old man at the time, had $80 in his pocket and headed west. And the government was not his partner. The government did not invest. The government did not sleep on the concrete, the wet concrete. The government did not lift a block of ice onto a frozen boat. That’s what partners do.

The government took his money and what he had left, and he started his business, and now that business employs 9,000 people around the world. It partners with 5,400 independent fishermen, and $80 turned into $3 billion a year.

I wish Chuck Bundrant were alive today. Oh, to see his face weathered by sun and sweat and worry when he hears that the government is his partner and that he didn’t build it and he should pay more, because it’s only fair.

Senator, when that old Ford station wagon headed back to the comfort of Tennessee, you should thank God that one of the seats was empty.

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