I was very young when my sister gave me George Orwell’s Animal Farm to read.  The book was about animals on a farm who were mistreated by the mean, nasty, and cruel farmer.  They revolted.  The animals got rid of the farmer and put the pigs in charge.  Well, as it turned out, the pigs were worse overlords than the famer had ever been.

When I read Animal Farm, I had no idea that it was a parody of the Russian Revolution.  I knew there was something strange about the book and the theme, but it took my fifth grade teacher to explain to me what I had read and its meaning.

Following my adventure with Animal Farm, there were two experiences in my life that helped to formulate my views about communism and socialism.  The first experience was a story my father loved to tell.  He was active in the union movement after the Great Depression.  He got fired from his job for union activism.  Under the “Baby Wagner Act,” he got his job back since union organization became protected by federal statute.  After my parents passed away, I found the letter firing him.  It was signed by one Sylvia Klein.  She was my mother.  It was like something out of a movie, perhaps Pajama Game or Norma Rae.  The Pajama Game was actually about a pajama factory in Williamsport, Pennsylvania!

I have never heard how my mother and father got together, given the course of events, but somehow, they did.  When my parents were dating, my grandfather came down to the picket line which my father convinced my mother she should be involved with.  There was an ongoing strike at the place where they both worked.  Allegedly, my grandfather took my mother by the back of her hair, pulled her off the line and said: “You don’t want to hang around with these bums.”

As the years went by, my father and grandfather’s love for cigars brought them together!

My favorite story was when one of my father’s friends convinced him that he should join the Communist Party in order to get help with the strike.  Dad said that he was interviewed by two men in a dark room with a bright light shining on him.  “It was like........

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