Do-Gooder

In 1996-97 I worked at The Center For New Directions on the LCSC campus in Lewiston, Idaho. I was a job coach for the Idaho State Welfare Dept. My primary job function, contracted through Americorps, was to aid in teaching resume writing and interviewing skills to welfare recipients and prison parolees (attending the class was mandatory for receiving welfare and/or probation). I got to pass out gems of wisdom such as: "Shower; use deodorant; less cleavage, more skirt; clean your fingernails, brush your teeth ... There was one young woman whose name I can't believe I have forgotten. She came into my class furious at Welfare's insistence she get a job and support herself. She said, "Having babies and living on welfare is my job. Both my momma and my grandma did it. Why can't I?" She was also the one, 6 weeks later, who came back from a job interview, sat down at my desk and started to cry. "They hired me, but I can't do this job!" The job was at a plant nursery. They wanted her to pour water and pull weeds. "Why not?" I asked. She wailed, "They expect me to go to work everyday!" Everyday? Pft. Fancy that. One of my first students was a very tall and wide, 22 year-old parolee named Gina. She bulled into my classroom, invaded my personal space and shouted from about 6 inches above my head, "I'm f-ing not taking this class and you f-ing can't make me." My short 36 year-old over-fed self was thinking: I'm f-ing dead. Still, I opened my mouth and calmly said, "You're right. I can't make you." She backed up about two steps and looked at me in surprise. "Are you f-ing kidding? I can leave?" I gestured toward the door, "It's not locked." She moved toward the door. I backed toward my desk. As her hand touched the door knob I picked up the telephone receiver. "Gina," I queried, "Would you remind me, please -- is your parole officer Tom or Mike?" She stopped. She turned around. She sat down at a desk and folded her hands. She also became one of my most enthusiastic students and my ever present body guard. When the other parolees would act up Gina would rise to her feet and snap, "Hey, Teach don't disrespect you. You don't disrespect her!" I know nothing of Gina beyond my year at the CND, but when I left, she had graduated from my class, gotten a job and enrolled in college. One of the last things she said to me was, "When I grow up, I wanna be a do-gooder like you."