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Opportunity: One leads to another
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Published: September 8, 2008
Most of us wait all of our lives for our "once in a lifetime" opportunity, whether that's to meet someone famous, do something exciting or go somewhere exotic.
Gloria Craven, from Eden, had two "once in a lifetime" opportunities in the space of a week, and is now possibly awaiting her third.
If you blinked while watching the Democratic National Convention a couple of weeks ago, you probably missed Gloria Craven. She popped up on our television screen just as we were settling in to watch the night's events, including the much-anticipated appearance of Sen. Hillary Clinton on the dais.
Just like the Republicans last week, the Democratic convention planners slipped in a lot of "regular folks" in between the big-name, big-gun speakers. When I heard them mention that Craven was from nearby Eden, my ears perked up. I've been to Eden, I've had lunch and shopped there. So I looked upon Craven as a kind of neighbor, someone who lived down the road, and I figured her problems wouldn't be much different from mine.
I couldn't have been more wrong. Gloria Craven has had a tough five or six years: She was a textile worker at the Pillowtex factory in Eden for 30 years until it abruptly closed in 2003. As Craven said on national TV, "And that was it, after 30 years: no notice, no ‘thank you.' "
Craven's husband lost his job, too. Now they live on Social Security, teetering on the edge of the poverty level. Craven went back to community college, but found out that she has medical problems from 30 years of walking the concrete floors at Pillowtex. The health insurance is gone, the unemployment benefits are long since exhausted, and Craven and her husband are struggling to get by.
This story isn't an unfamiliar one. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, you know that working people are hurting these days, as almost all the textile and furniture jobs in our part of North Carolina have long since moved far eastward, where labor is cheap and hours are long.
Because Craven's story is depressingly similar to so many tales of urban and rural woe in contemporary America, it was probably easy for many viewers to tune out, especially since Craven is not the most polished of speakers, her voice flat and heavy.
But she spoke from her heart, and she pulled me right in, and my wife, too. When she talked about a new America "where things like hard work and loyalty mean something again," I have to admit, I got a tear in my eye. I looked over, and my wife was choked up, too. There was something so genuine and real in the events and emotions that she was describing that all of a sudden, the convention became about people like Craven, and less about the Clintons and the Obamas.
When Craven returned from Denver last week, I called her and asked her what the experience had been like. Was she star-struck? Had all this gone to her head?
Not a chance. "I'm glad I did it," she said. "I felt that I was representing everyone in the country who's had a situation like mine. There are lots and lots of us."
The little speech Craven made at the convention was one she first made at a meeting of her former Pillowtex union, UNITE. An Obama campaign organizer heard her, and asked her to join Barack Obama as one of several speakers at a town-hall rally he held in Raleigh the week before the convention. It would be a "once in a lifetime" opportunity to share the stage with the possible future president of the United States, Craven was told.
Obama was personally impressed by Craven's remarks, and spent about five minutes speaking with her and her 11-year-old grandson after her speech. "He was very nice, very caring, especially to my grandson," Craven said. It was, she said, the most exciting thing in her grandson's young life.
A day later, along came that second "once in a lifetime opportunity." The same Obama campaign organizer called again, and this time asked if she would be willing to go to Denver and "go national" with her life story. She was nervous, she said, but she agreed because of all those other people she was speaking for.
Her grandson couldn't go to Denver -- school was starting, and the Democrats offered her only one ticket. But when she returned home, he had a question for her. "Grandma," he said, "can we go to the White House if Mr. Obama is elected?"
Now Gloria Craven is waiting for that third "once in a lifetime" opportunity. "It doesn't mean so much for me," she said. "But my grandson would just love it."
■ Dale Pollock, a former dean at the School of Filmmaking at the N.C. School of the Arts, now teaches film there.
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