[James Brancheau]

You don't need to be a scholar, John. I've written this before here, so I'll try to make it briefer. My father was a firefighter making firefighter money, middle class money, in the late 70s. My mother did not work at that time. We had a house, two cars (bought new, both of them), my brother and I went to a private (fairly crazy) catholic school, and we took a couple week family vacation every year. On one firefighter's salary.