Just like the memorable Walt Whitman poem, Jeff Manes hears America singing, but instead of poetry he hears the stories of real people, working people, those whose words are not usually showcased in mainstream media.
Manes’ column in Northwest Indiana’s Post-Tribune is called “Salt” for good reason. The people he talks to are down-to-earth, supposedly “average” until you get to know them.
The way Jeff Manes puts it, “Their names don’t usually appear in the newspaper. The obits, maybe. But they are all worth their salt.”
Manes grew up along the bayous of the Kankakee River, “atop the carcinogenic coke batteries abutting Lake Michigan,” he says. A former steelworker, he writes from a pro-labor point of view and has a knack for finding unique stories about hard-working people.
One faithful reader is uplifted by “Salt” because of the people interviewed for each story. “What I find refreshing about Jeff Manes’ column is that it isn’t about the sorority queen or company president or sports hero. Instead, it is about ‘Joe Average.’ Yet it turns out ‘Joe Average’ always has a deeper side and achieves great things or makes the world a better place.”
Just flipping through the pages of this sturdy, 395-page volume entitled “All Worth Their Salt,” is a reader’s delight. Each interview begins with a quote. Sometimes it is words of a celebrity or famous person, but often it might be a line or two of a song, or a homespun bit of wisdom. There are pictures of the people interviewed too, not glamorous studio portraits but the kind of candid shots that capture a person’s no-frills essence.
The quote by Tera Evans’ picture is one she had ready for Manes when he came to interview her. “You’re happiest when you’re making the greatest contribution,” are words of Senator Robert F. Kennedy that she lives by.
Her job description at Opportunity Enterprises is in the category of employee development for the developmentally disabled, but she sees her work as helping to give meaning to her clients’ days. “It’s a reward working with these people, a privilege,” she explains.
A case in point is a participant who struggled with autism and was sometimes physically aggressive to staff. He also was prone to profanity and abusive language, but Tera perceived his habits as an indication that he had spirit. For a troubled young man in his twenties, such behavior was not entirely unexpected. After all, he was one of the residents whose parents never came to see him.
“He’d see his housemates go home for the holidays,” Tera recalls. “On Christmas he never got to go anywhere.”
Because she made it her business to know residents’ likes and dislikes, Tera learned that he loved the movie, “Grease.” When she told him it was being re-released to theatres, he was interested in going to see it, so she made a deal.
“I told him I’d take him to see the movie if he would get up every morning during the work week,” she explained. She brought the soundtrack to the movie and played it endlessly as a reminder that he had to continue to perform. “Drove the staff crazy,” she admits, but the music strategy worked.
“He suffered from a seizure disorder and had to wear a protective helmet to the movie that evening. When the “Grease” theme song was playing, he stood up in the theatre and shouted, ‘Grease is the word, Tera.’ I’ve never seen a person so happy,” she said.
Working with people with disabilities is something people say they admire, but not many choose to enter a profession with so many challenges and predictably low pay. Tera, however, has compassion, and her work gives her life meaning.
“It wasn’t that long ago that facilities for challenged individuals were a disgrace,” she told Jeff Manes. “They were called horrible names like ‘schools for social idiots’ or ‘lunatic asylums.’ And now that funding is being cut, I worry we could revert to those times.”
Tera Evans is just one of the one-hundred-ten stories in “All Worth Their Salt.” Since January 2005, when Jeff Manes started writing “Salt,” he has written about a thousand of these profiles. Currently, he is working on a second volume, and his work is an inspiration to any columnist who strives for relevance and authenticity.
“Everyone has a story to tell,” Jeff Manes declares in the introduction to “All Worth Their Salt.” Now that he is telling so many compelling tales of “regular” lives, this reader hope it will not be long before he tells his own story.
For more information log on to https://www.facebook.com/allworththeirsalt or email him at JeffManes@sbcglobal.net.
Constance Alexander is a faculty scholar in the Teacher Quality Institute at Murray State University. She is a freelance writer who writes a regular column for her local newspaper and for NKyTribune.