Originally posted on FB, August 29, 2022 • I wrote this back in 2016 when Trump was running for president, reflecting on our working-class neighborhood’s shifting values and experiences. Maybe I was too idealistic and didn’t see what was clearly around me—maybe I got it wrong. Today is my mom’s birthday, and I want to celebrate her and the values she instilled in me: compassion, community, and family. This piece is about the summer she packed us all into her gold International Scout and drove us across the country, staying at KOAs along the way. In 2016, I found myself back at the same KOA, thinking of my mom and her unstoppable drive. Westward HO!

• Written by Lesa Quale Ferguson•

he summer I turned eight, my mom packed her two teenage brothers, one of their girlfriends, her ten-year-old sister, and her kids—Scott and me—into her brand-new gold International Scout, a vehicle she got out of the divorce. We embarked on a two-month journey across the country to California, where her sister lived.

Armed with triptiks from AAA, we stayed exclusively at KOA campgrounds. It was the safest, most reliable, and relatively cheapest way to travel, with KOAs sprinkled throughout the country. No matter how lost we got, we never had to “camp” in someone’s backyard.

Fast forward 40 years, and here I am at a KOA again, possibly even the same site we stayed at back then. It’s comforting to see that despite the passage of time, KOAs remain as reliable and ubiquitous as ever. Besides the laundry and showers, they now have a pool, horseback riding, a rodeo (though we won’t be here for it), and espresso. The summer staff comes from far-off places like Lithuania, Jamaica, and China.

The campers are packed in, making this place the Club Med of working-class folks.

When I lived in Seattle, many of my friends from working-class families jumped class and now vacation all over the world. Vacations have become class markers—whether you can afford to take them and where and how you go. Some would say I missed an opportunity to move up.

But I’ve never had much desire to jump class, even though the idea of fancy vacations could make a girl lunge. I take pride in where I’m from, my family, and our values—justice, service, art, a love of kids and old people, vocation, community and workplace organizing. Work is not your life; it’s only the means, not the way. Watching so many of us working-class folks abandon these core values for the likes of Trump makes it feel like everyone gave up on George Bailey to sell out to Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life.

But more than all that, my working-class dreams are more vision than pride. Even now, sitting here at this KOA, I can still see my single mother with her long black hair whipping out of the open window of her Scout, barreling down the highway with her family packed in tight, westward bound, only stopping to rest at the next KOA.