First Posted: 3/13/2013

As I read George Race’s letter in the March 8 edition, I would like to comment.

If it’s true that a member of the teachers’ union made that denigrating statement about McDonald’s workers, he or she should be ashamed.

Is there any way to prove the veracity of the statement? Was it taken out of context out of opportunity? The reasons I ask are these:

I’m a Wyoming Area school director and the mother of five children who graduated from the district. One of those children is a secondary math teacher at Wyoming Area.

We were and are a “working class” family and proud of it. My husband is a retired truck driver and now pushes carts at Price Chopper. His job status is no higher than a McDonald’s counter worker.

I was a bus driver for 12 years and have been a Real Estate Associate Broker for 27 years.

My daughter, who is the Wyoming Area teacher, worked in Small Town Mfg. in the 80s, cleaning restrooms. She waitressed, along with her other sister and myself, at Howard Johnson’s to pay for tuition at Penn State.

My other daughter was a teacher at Bloomsburg State as a nursing instructor. She spent her high school years emptying bed pans at Leader Nursing home because I told her we couldn’t break for tuition assistance until she was absolutely sure she wanted to be a nurse.

My son, who owns Big Top Rental, tore out asbestos when we didn’t know how dangerous asbestos was. He biked four miles to work and back, every day in rain and snow to get to his job in retail.

My other two sons, one who works in the private sector and one who works for the state, worked in a factory making party favors , picking tomatoes on a local farm, working in one of the local pizza restaurants and delivering beer for minimum wage.

Why am I telling you this? Because none of my children, including the teacher, would ever think less of someone because they were a counter worker at McDonald’s. That job is an upgrade from some of the jobs they performed.

Hard work, love of family, loyalty and honesty are the building blocks of our family and our community. My children were never the prettiest, the handsomest, the smartest, the kings, the queens or the titled. Maybe that’s why they all succeeded in their own way.

If George’s unverified statement is indeed accurate, we are all embarrassed. If it isn’t, then he should be ashamed.

Deanna Innamorati Farrell

West Wyoming