Why is Patti Grumpy and why is she speaking out at public meetings? Check out my latest essay, below:
At 62, I have finally – FINALLY – become a loudmouthed badass.
And that’s Ms. Badass to you, my friend.
In mid-June of this year, I found myself speaking during the public comment section of the St. Clair County Advisory Board of Health. Yelling. Telling the board and the world I was pissed …PISSED!…that the so-called county medical director was recommending that the county turn down approximately $500,000 in federal funding that has, for 50 years, paid for healthcare services in our community.
And most of the citizens served by those dollars? Women. The funding pays for family planning services and cancer screenings, among other health concerns.
Who IS this woman who attends public meetings and raises her voice at elected and appointed officials?
The 1985 version of Patti certainly wouldn’t have recognized her.
Back in 1985, when I was 21 years old and fresh out of college, my first job was as a newspaper reporter, a good old-fashioned newspaper reporter who asked my sources for, “Just the facts, ma’m…” and who wrote without opinions.
Not because I didn’t HAVE opinions, but because that was what the job required.
I believed then, and I still believe, deeply in the First Amendment and freedom of the press and the importance of a robust, fair, accurate and free news media in our nation.
I later went on to work in public relations where I was allowed to share opinions, but they were not my own. I was a company mouthpiece. The words that tumbled out of my mouth represented my employers.
Back then, my corporate jobs required that I worked closely with local and statewide politicians, so my employers asked that I not even so much as place a political sign in my front yard.
Keep those opinions to yourself, Ms. Patti.
And then I quit corporate life and went to work for myself.
When the first election cycle came around, I drove to the local labor temple/union hall and picked up yard signs for every Democrat running for public office that I could vote for.
I lined them up, neatly, like Burma-Shave signs, in the front yard.
Granholm. Peters. Levin.
I was herding donkies. In my front yard. Those signs made me so happy.
It was like, at last, I had a voice. I was able to share with the world, or at least my neighbors on Armour Street, that I was a Democrat.
And I was damn proud of it, in spite of living in a very conservative community.
Every two years after that, I put up signs for Democratic candidates.
But I rarely talked about politics. I rarely shared my opinions with anyone. My yard signs were my silent protest to the world.
And then 2016 happened. Donald Trump was elected, much to everyone’s surprise, and most especially to the surprise of Donald Trump himself.
And I began sharing my opinion more freely.
When the first election cycle came around, I drove to the local labor temple/union hall and picked up yard signs for every Democrat running for public office that I could vote for.
I lined them up, neatly, like Burma-Shave signs, in the front yard.
Granholm. Peters. Levin.
I was herding donkies. In my front yard. Those signs made me so happy.
In 2016, I was securely in my 50s. I’d jumped the hurdle of giving much of a damn about what anyone thought of me or my opinions.
My last remaining fear was of losing business. Being an opinionated self-employed Democrat in a community full of conservative Republicans might not be good for business, I thought.
Until, the louder I got on Facebook, the more my business grew.
My advertising agency acquired and held onto new clients. Some even went so far as to share with me that my political leanings had drawn them to me.
By that time, I was also publishing Blue Water Woman magazine. There was a small spike in new advertisers. “It’s important to support the work you do,” several of them told me solemnly, in what I knew was a not-so-silent nod to my political opinions.
And here’s the thing. I don’t speak up and yell and complain about just anything. I’m yelling about issues that are critically important for those who do not yet have a voice themselves.
Honestly, at 62 years old, I’m on the tail end of life here. I don’t have kids. I have no “legacy” I’m worried about leaving, except for this: we should ALL aspire to leave the world a better place than it was when we erupted into it, kicking and screaming down a birth canal (or extracted from a warm belly).
I’m not yelling at public officials so I can use those family planning services. My reproductive system is old, shriveled and all dried up at this point in my life.
I’m yelling at them for the women who need them now. For the single (or married) moms who are doing all they can to hold their families together, who might be struggling to survive because the cost of housing is so high, the cost of groceries is astronomical, and they cannot completely fill their gas tanks until pay day.
I’m yelling for the women who found a lump in their breast and they have no family physician and they would like a medical examination and the guidance and support system that our public health department offers.
I’m yelling because, after 62 years of living as a privileged white female, I still walk into rooms and am silenced because of my gender.
I’m yelling because I cannot imagine what it must be like for a not-at-all privileged woman of color or member of the LGBTQIA+ community to walk into those very same rooms and feel not only silenced, but shunned…or worse.
And I’m pissed…PISSED!
I’m yelling because, well, it took me 62 damn years, but I’ve finally found my voice.
Finally.
Have you found yours?
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