Throughout history, snobs have looked down on working people.

British shows and movies like Upstairs/Downstairs and Gosford Park showcase the pressures on the serving class not to interact with the people they are serving.

We are different in America. We don’t have kings and queens. Family history can help someone be President but the White House has been open to peanut farmers, movie actors and people with working class roots. We like people who come from “down in the boondocks.”

The guy running the Kentucky Parks Department must have wound up in the wrong country. As I wrote in last week’s column, the Parks Commissioner sent out an edict saying that they would fire park employees who had long hair, earrings or left their shirttails out.

It turns out the guy was serious and fired people who cleaned a state park. Two were single mothers and one was a Navy veteran with tattoos.

The park workers supervisor was a good American and resigned over the policy. He deserves our admiration but that won’t feed his family. The veteran was able to fight for our country but not allowed to keep a job that paid $6.30 an hour.

Once the fired employees find a good lawyer, the Commissioner’s action is going to cost the taxpayers of Kentucky a lot of money. I know a lot of employment lawyers and most would die to represent the employees.

The Commissioner then took it to a further extreme by issuing another edict saying that park employees could not stay at the same parks where they work. He also told park employees to give up their right to free speech and not to talk to the media.

The Commissioner’s office said, “Is a guest going to be comfortable mingling with someone who turns out to be a guest and an employee?"

I’m missing something here. Maybe in England, people are outraged to find they share a hotel with someone who works there. Here in America, I don’t think anyone really cares. In fact, how would someone know? I go to state parks but usually interact with whomever I came with. I have no idea who the other guests are unless they play their television loudly at 3 am.

Maybe the state parks have been having swinging singles mixers like Club Med and the Commissioner wants to make sure he has the right combination of people. Since the commissioner came in to try to make the parks profitable, he may have a secret plan to have cocktail hours and singles’ nights. They don’t sell cocktails at state parks but maybe he can get people to mill around the ice cream machine instead.

Rather than being a snobby elitist, the commissioner may have a shrewd business plan.

If so, he is a better business mind than I am. I was an financial advisor for many years and I put my clients in the same investments that my family and employees had. I thought it showed that we believed in what we offered to our clients.

Holiday Inn and other hotels give employees discounts when their families stay in their hotels. Most airlines let their employees fly free and it has never bothered me to sit next to a pilot or flight attendant.

I’ll bet sitting next to an airline employee drives the Parks Commissioner crazy. Especially since some airline employees fly in first class which is probably where the Commissioner hangs out.

Governor Fletcher is hoping that the commissioner turns out to be a business whiz as he has hurt the Governor politically.

The Governor got a number of votes from people with long hair, tattoos, earrings and body piercing. People who can’t keep their shirttails in supported him and I will bet that Fletcher got some votes from parks employees and their families. He can kiss those voters goodbye now.

If Kentucky were like England where you stay a king for life, the Governor would not have to worry. Here in America, they give the right to vote to everyone.

Even if they have long hair, earrings, body piercing and dress like slobs.