A Mother Offers Herself as Exhibit A on Hard Times
Published: October 23, 2004
MILWAUKEE, Wis., Oct. 22 - She is popping up in nearly every one of John Kerry's speeches now: Lori Sheldon, the Pennsylvania mother who tearfully told Mr. Kerry last month that she was "tired of saying no" to two daughters.
"People ask me for my autograph," Ms. Sheldon said in an interview as she helped her 11-year-old, Katie, with her math homework.
On Saturday, Mr. Kerry will tell her story again in his radio address to the nation. What he does not know, Ms. Sheldon said, is that her tale of economic hardship has taken a turn for the worse.
Ms. Sheldon took her husband, John, a ground crewman at the Pittsburgh airport, and their two daughters to a Kerry front-porch event on Labor Day near their home in Canonsburg, Pa. When she heard him describe the effects on families of lost jobs and rising costs, Ms. Sheldon rose from her seat.
"You just told our story," she said, pointing to her 11- and 16-year-old girls. "I'm tired of saying no to them. We say no all the time."
Her poignant testimony instantly won Ms. Sheldon an exalted place in the pantheon of down-on-their-luck folks Mr. Kerry uses - at times without their knowledge - to give his speeches a human face, and to paint a picture of an America where jobs are drying up, the sick and frail cannot afford treatment and drugs, and a tank of gasoline is so expensive that relatives are visiting each other less often.
At the Labor Day event, Ms. Sheldon, 45, said she feared that her husband would lose his job at US Airways because of the demise of the airline's Pittsburgh hub. Two weeks later, she said, he got his pink slip. His last day will be Nov. 7.
Mr. Sheldon, 44, had worked for the airline for 21 years. "I said to him the other day, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' " his wife said. "I told the kids, Don't worry, Dad's not going to let us starve."
That kind of attitude, though, can give way to more unpleasant feelings, she said. Ms. Sheldon works at a small business and counted on her husband's job to provide the benefits. She said she had recently asked her boss for health insurance, which no employee now gets. "I feel like I'm begging for something," she said.
Ms. Sheldon has laid down the law about Christmas already - no presents for adults - but, she said, she is still having to say no to her girls. "This is Halloween, and they like to go to haunted houses," she said, but each one costs $12 or more. "They just went this weekend, and were already talking about another one," she said. "I'm like, 'You had your thrill. Once was enough.' "
But what she has learned from her "15 minutes," she said, is that she is not alone - and so Ms. Sheldon does not object when she learns that Mr. Kerry has used her name yet again.
"I'm not embarrassed, I'm frustrated," she said. "It's a bad situation, don't you think?"
Published: October 23, 2004
MILWAUKEE, Wis., Oct. 22 - She is popping up in nearly every one of John Kerry's speeches now: Lori Sheldon, the Pennsylvania mother who tearfully told Mr. Kerry last month that she was "tired of saying no" to two daughters.
"People ask me for my autograph," Ms. Sheldon said in an interview as she helped her 11-year-old, Katie, with her math homework.
On Saturday, Mr. Kerry will tell her story again in his radio address to the nation. What he does not know, Ms. Sheldon said, is that her tale of economic hardship has taken a turn for the worse.
Ms. Sheldon took her husband, John, a ground crewman at the Pittsburgh airport, and their two daughters to a Kerry front-porch event on Labor Day near their home in Canonsburg, Pa. When she heard him describe the effects on families of lost jobs and rising costs, Ms. Sheldon rose from her seat.
"You just told our story," she said, pointing to her 11- and 16-year-old girls. "I'm tired of saying no to them. We say no all the time."
Her poignant testimony instantly won Ms. Sheldon an exalted place in the pantheon of down-on-their-luck folks Mr. Kerry uses - at times without their knowledge - to give his speeches a human face, and to paint a picture of an America where jobs are drying up, the sick and frail cannot afford treatment and drugs, and a tank of gasoline is so expensive that relatives are visiting each other less often.
At the Labor Day event, Ms. Sheldon, 45, said she feared that her husband would lose his job at US Airways because of the demise of the airline's Pittsburgh hub. Two weeks later, she said, he got his pink slip. His last day will be Nov. 7.
Mr. Sheldon, 44, had worked for the airline for 21 years. "I said to him the other day, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' " his wife said. "I told the kids, Don't worry, Dad's not going to let us starve."
That kind of attitude, though, can give way to more unpleasant feelings, she said. Ms. Sheldon works at a small business and counted on her husband's job to provide the benefits. She said she had recently asked her boss for health insurance, which no employee now gets. "I feel like I'm begging for something," she said.
Ms. Sheldon has laid down the law about Christmas already - no presents for adults - but, she said, she is still having to say no to her girls. "This is Halloween, and they like to go to haunted houses," she said, but each one costs $12 or more. "They just went this weekend, and were already talking about another one," she said. "I'm like, 'You had your thrill. Once was enough.' "
But what she has learned from her "15 minutes," she said, is that she is not alone - and so Ms. Sheldon does not object when she learns that Mr. Kerry has used her name yet again.
"I'm not embarrassed, I'm frustrated," she said. "It's a bad situation, don't you think?"
