Mike Tharp: Mercedians welcome first lady

Howdy, Mrs. Obama.

Welcome to Merced County.

We're mighty glad you're here. Thank you for making us part of a schedule that sometimes must seem as busy as the bees that pollinate our almond trees every spring.

Mike Tharp

You do us honor by coming to speak to our first four-year class to graduate from UC Merced. No doubt your old Harvard prof, Charles Ogletree, Jr., who grew up in South Merced, has told you some about us. As have your trail-blazers and scene-setters.

They couldn't tell you all about us, though. So here are a few facts and yarns that may help you get to know us a little better.

We Mercedians look a lot like America -- we're brown, white, black, yellow and Other -- the same colors as most towns and cities across the land. A few of us are rich, some of us are middle class (lower and upper) and too many of us are poor -- around one out of five in our county of 255,000. About the same ratio don't have jobs nowadays -- 20 percent unemployment.

Still, we're all seeking a better life for ourselves and an even better world for our kids and grandkids.

One side of us you'll notice, Mrs. Obama, however short your stay: we're proud folks. And we don't put on airs. Who you see is what you get with most Mercedians. L.A., San Francisco, Sacramento -- they've all got good people, too. But any of us who've lived in those places, before calling this county home, are struck hard and fast by how down-to-earth most Mercedians are.

One reason is that our main livelihood hereabouts is literally down-to-earth. We're farmers -- almonds, hay, tomatoes, sweet potatoes -- and ranchers -- dairy and beef. More than a few of us are transplanted Okies and Arkies, part of John Steinbeck's migrant tribe.

That's one reason we're so easy to trust. A Mercedian looks you in the eye, Mrs. Obama, shakes your hand with a grip that even your Lara Croft muscles would consider firm, and you can take what he or she says to the bank. One, we hope, that hasn't needed your husband's bailout money.

If Chicago is the City of Big Shoulders, Merced County is the Land of Big Mustaches. Gaze into the crowd at the men in the graduation audience. You'll see some proud papas and uncles and brothers who look as if they just rode out of Dodge in 1880.

Our women you'll like. No shrinking poppies (our local flower). They'll tell you just what's on their minds, with all the manners they were brought up to display. It'd be neat if you met Carolyn Goings. She's retired now, spends the winter as a snowbird in Surprise, Ariz. But in February she drove four days round-trip from Arizona to Merced to attend a meeting about a new railroad underpass to be built near her home. She wanted her voice heard.

And like today's second-most famous multiracial figure in America, Tiger Woods, we've got a lot of folks who've colored outside the lines. Our Hmong and Lao, for instance, drifted here after fighting for America in the Secret War in Indochina. They've intermarried. Hope you get to say hello to Sam Malaythong, who owns Sam (no apostrophe -- there's a story why that he delights in telling diners) Café, and who's donated money and spicy noodles to many UC Merced student groups. There isn't a Thai restaurant inside the Beltway that serves better food.

We've also got Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Sikh and Croatian hyphenated Americans. Our sheriff is one of the latter.

Like the ones in San Pedro, L.A.'s port town, he resembles the high school football coach there who was once described: "He'd give you the shirt off his back -- then tell you how to wear it."