Blue Collar to Middle Class

Abstract

Blue Collar to Middle Class Kathleen Driskell (bio) My parents aspired to climb into the middleclass and cling tight. PTA, golf scrambles,Bridge. A frothy whiskey sour, plastic pinkspear, complete with hilt, driven throughthe bright maraschino cherry and an orangeslice dropped atop and floating in chippedice, ordered whenever out with coupleswho had learned to ask for their steaksmedium rare, sneering at the sweet Frenchdressing the waitress rattled off with optionsfor tossed salads. Instead, they requestedcreamy Italian, just then in vogue. The wives pulled the cherry stems throughtheir teeth and shook their heads. No,of course, they won't allow their childrento be bussed—though, they did not thinkof themselves as bigots. Hadn't they just comeof age in the Age of Aquarius? Hadn't theyrolled up the carpets in their living rooms,pushed them against the walls, and allowedChubby Checker to teach them how to twist? [End Page 27] Kathleen Driskell Kathleen Driskell is the Chair of Spalding University's School of Creative and Professional Writing, home of the nationally distinguished low-residency MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, Kentucky. She's the author of the poetry collections Blue Etiquette: Poems, a finalist for the Weatherford Award; Next Door to the Dead, a Kentucky Voices selection by the University Press of Kentucky and winner of the 2018 Judy Gaines Young Book Award; Seed Across Snow, a Poetry Foundation national bestseller; Laughing Sickness, and Peck and Pock: A Graphic Poem. Copyright © 2022 Berea College ...