In the mid-1970s I worked for a welfare director named Dave Kelly. Lumber was the regional economic driver and our county’s biggest employer. With mill workers on a prolonged strike, many families applied for food stamps. Dave told his staff that income was the only eligibility criterion and instructed them to grant all income-eligible families.

Mill management complained to the conservative county commissioners, who argued that because strikers’ incomes were voluntarily reduced, they were ineligible. When Dave kept issuing benefits, the commissioners summoned him to a public meeting. The Welfare Department was in an old building needing frequent repairs, and Dave enjoyed making some of them personally. Busy with a carpentry project the day he was summoned, he appeared in overalls and a t-shirt. The commissioners told Dave their concerns: He was taking sides in a labor dispute, strikers’ incomes were voluntarily reduced, the county might be liable if benefits were unwarranted, etc. Dave responded with a single sentence: “Gentlemen, I will not take food away from hungry people.” Then he stood, turned and went back to his carpentry project, leaving his stunned employers looking at one another.

Dave was correct about the law, the county lost nothing and he kept his job. But the reason I loved working for him was that he didn’t argue about regulations, which he understood far better than the commissioners. In fact, he didn’t argue at all. He simply asserted a non-negotiable human concern.

I was younger then, certain that we — people like Dave and I — would make a better world. I had good reasons for optimism. The Vietnam War was ending. We were winning the struggle for civil rights. We had declared war on poverty. The San Francisco hippie movement was filling our county’s countryside with cooperative living experiments — some right on the three-acres my wife Niki and I owned. Bob Dylan sang what we were feeling:

“Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command, 

Your old road is rapidly agin’. 

Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand, 

For the times they are a-changin.”

WE, of course, were the sons and daughters. The road was ours to take. But 50 years later, it’s not just a mean-spirited little band of rural politicos wanting to take food away from people. It’s the president and Congress of the United States. What happened?

We got older, times kept “a-changin,” but we didn’t. We ignored and ridiculed people with different ideas, among them some of our own sons and daughters. In 1980, those people elected Ronald Reagan President, and, in 1981, labor lost the right to support strikers with food stamps. Among other setbacks, unions lost influence, tax rates for the wealthy were lowered, wealth inequity grew dramatically, abortion returned to state control, as did voting rights in states previously under federal supervision, immigration is still a mess and corporations became people. I’m inclined to say we were too smug and blew it.

But did we? We established social security income to support the elderly and individuals with disabilities. We created the earned income tax credit and expanded it six times. We added and expanded the child tax credit. We enacted the Women, Infants and Children Program to provide nutrition aid for young families. Despite strikers losing access to food stamps, we expanded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to include more people and increase benefits. The Affordable Care Act massively expanded access to health insurance. We made it more acceptable for fathers to stay home and decreased pay inequity for women and minorities. Gay rights were established and expanded, with same-sex marriage becoming a federal right. We’ve made inadequate but significant progress towards a sustainable environment. These are not small gains. They reshaped countless lives. At worst, our record is mixed.

Politically, 2024 was a year when many of our children and grandchildren abandoned us. About 47% of voters under 35 voted for Donald Trump. But this happened during the “Reagan Revolution,” too, with 55–60% voting for him in 1984. Younger people tend to want change, but they’re not stupid. Reagan delivered what they wanted, and in 1988, his successor, George H. Bush, kept 52% of the youth vote. Recent polls show Trump’s approval rating among young voters at 20%. They wanted change, they didn’t like what they got, they’re ready to move on, and Dylan is still singing:

“Don’t stand in the doorway, 

Don’t block up the hall,

For the times they are a-changin.”

Have I been blocking the hall? Maybe! I didn’t mean to, but neither did our parents. Face it, Biden, our transition President, didn’t transit. Harris/Walz were status quo. We could have done better. Maybe we still can, if we follow Dave Kelly’s example of acting with compassion and moral clarity, qualities always available to anyone with the courage to use them.

Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale.