Politics at the Five-and-Dime

"I watch the elderly people come in and ask how much something is," Fleck says. "You see them counting their money. Here they are putting back a can of tuna fish or some cookies, and you know that's their treat. And I'll say, 'Don't worry about it, I got it.' I'm not supposed to do that. But in the back of my mind I'm thinking: Is that tuna fish what they are going to eat for the day or for the week?"

From her vantage point of Dollar General, amid the Apple Jacks and tube socks and scratchy Made in China toddler suits and cans of cling peaches and bottles of Motrin (kept up front to prevent theft), she sees it all.

"I'm not gonna lie about it," she says. "Some people come in with their food stamp cards, dressed to the hilt and gold chains hanging off them and their hair and nails done. I'm thinking: What's wrong with this picture?"

She believes immigrants should learn English. "I have no problem with someone coming to America, but don't you want to be 100 percent of it?"

Not only does she drive strictly American, she drives a Ford Taurus because a large number of its parts are manufactured in the United States.

She grudgingly supports abortion rights but thinks that "women's lib and all of these working mothers" are short-changing their children.

Fleck lives in the Flamingo Court trailer park in Farmington Hills at the south end of Oakland County. Her mobile home is spacious, decorated with curtain valances and matching towel sets and a candy dish. Before Flamingo Court, Fleck was married for 31 years. Three kids. Her husband -- her junior high school sweetheart -- worked as a millwright (an industrial maintenance mechanic) with the Big Three automakers and brought home between $1,000 and $3,000 a week with his union card.

Good money and a decent life were built on sweat, then the marriage ended. A photo album on Fleck's coffee table shows pictures from the birth of her recent grandchild, and everyone is crowded into the hospital room -- Fleck, her ex, their three grown kids, spouses and grandkids. Some things have held.

Others have not. Both of her sons are millwrights, but the work has gone overseas. They wait for the union hall to call with jobs, and they sometimes draw unemployment. Last month, Fleck's ex-husband lost his house to foreclosure.

Fleck treats her own job as if she were a mid-level executive. Her phone rings on her day off with calls from work. She tosses and turns over tasks left undone. Her conscientious habits have not gone unnoticed.

Two years ago, on her fourth year at Dollar General, the store manager came to her with a proposal.

"What would it take for you to be an assistant manager?" he asked.