The center of the political universe

I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which just may be the center of the political universe this election cycle. My parents and their friends have all been volunteering on the Kerry campaign and will be driving people to the polls tomorrow. And another Scranton expatriate has written about the surreality of seeing one's hometown get so much attention from Presidential candidates. This description of the town really struck home:

It's ironic to see Scranton become now the subject of so much national interest, to see powerful men lavish so much attention on a city that has been so neglected for so long. Scranton has been mocked for a reason, cruel and unnecessary as it is. To grow up in Scranton was to know that your hometown was in decline. You couldn't miss it. Year after year, the downtown became less vibrant. Stores boarded up one after the other. You'd drive through your neighborhood and notice more people weren't keeping up with yards grown mangy with weeds. They weren't replacing the siding on their houses, letting it crack and peel. There was less money for such things. Jobs were leaving town, heading to Mexico or overseas or wherever. It didn't matter where they went -- they weren't coming back.

My parents' generation grew up with the belief that they could always get a decent job working with their hands or doing a trade if they weren't college material. But over the years, good-paying jobs -- union jobs -- moved away, and were replaced by low-paying ones like telemarketing. And for those of us who were college material, staying became less possible, despite all of Scranton's unique and endearing qualities -- its mountainous beauty, sense of safety, and small-city intimacy. It's something my parents, who still live within six blocks of where they grew up, could probably never fathom until it happened. For their children to pursue their dreams, they had to leave Scranton -- home -- where generations of our relatives have lived. And so my two sisters and I and countless of our former schoolmates and friends have settled elsewhere.