WOODBURY, CONN. -- The American Way promises citizens that they can touch the stars if they reach high enough.
Jim Beard's desires are a lot more simple: "All I want is a decent job where I can work 40 hours a week, go home to enjoy my family and my garden, and be left alone."
But even that goal remains elusive. The 55-year-old foundry worker has been laid off four times since the 1960s, most recently in August. His confidence in this country's philosophies -- and more importantly, in himself -- has been so deflated that he finds it hard to get out of bed.
Last week, Mr. Beard exploded with anger in a church basement in the affluent community of Woodbury.
"I feel inadequate," he said, hunched in a chair with his armsfolded close to his chest. "I feel I have wasted my whole life."
Seated around him were eight other men and one woman, all over 40, who share his plight.
They fanned his anger, blaming President Bush for scrapping yet another major weapons contract in Connecticut last week that could have bolstered the state's teetering economy. They grumbled about "the arrogance of the Japanese" and the naivete of American consumers. They complained about job interviewers labeling them as "over-qualified," another word for "too old."
So went the first meeting of Woodbury's unemployment support group.
Others like it are are forming rapidly throughout the country as the recession continues to ravage the lives of Americans and the unemployed seek emotional relief from their isolation and shame. In churches, libraries and other public facilities, the growing numbers of unemployed are gathering to share stories of pain and hopelessness.
At the same time, meetings can be unusually light-hearted, with members cheering one another with humorous one-liners.
"It had been weeks since I had been in a good mood when I lost my job," said Jonathan A. Apps, a bank operations manager who has been out of work for nearly a year. "I went to the support group, and there were people telling jokes about pink slips and overdue bills. They were making fun of interviewers, and for the first time in a long time, I laughed."
Self-help clearinghouse officials in states across the country say the number of unemployment groups or the demand for such groups has doubled in the past year. In the Maryland-Washington-Virginia area, there are at least a dozen.
But in Connecticut -- the nation's wealthiest state -- the economic devastation seems particularly severe.
Between November 1990 and November 1991, the unemployment rate jumped from 4.8 percent to 6.2 percent.
More than almost any other state, Connecticut is heavily dependent on dwindling military dollars. In the last few weeks, the state's largest private employers -- United Technologies Corp. and General Dynamics Corp. -- prepared for layoffs of up to 15,000 workers between them.
In addition, the state's banking, insurance and real estate industries have been badly bruised by the recession.
So it is not surprising that the state has perhaps the most sophisticated network of unemployment support groups.
Approximately 50 have been formed within the past year -- including one for people over 55, several for chief executive officers and one for spouses of the unemployed or the underemployed.
Often the leaders are unemployed people seeking a purpose in their idleness. They coordinate the programs with little or no money. And they bring in speakers to discuss stress management, ego-boosting, credit counseling and resume-writing and interviewing techniques.
The members represent all ages and education levels. Most of them have been laid off from executive and mid-level management jobs. Few members are blue-collar, and only a handful are minorities.
"Support groups seem to be a middle-class phenomenon," said Vicki Smith of the Connecticut Self-Help Clearinghouse.
"All are invited, but those who have always been extremely poor are too busy dealing with basic survival issues, and a disproportionate number of those people are minorities."
However, Mr. Apps, who received his first charity in the form of a Christmas food basket last year, says he can now relate to the struggles of welfare recipients and is walking only a few steps ahead of the homeless men he sees on the streets.
Fourteen years ago, he started driving delivery trucks for a bank for $15,000 a year and worked his way up to becoming a $40,000-a-year computer operations manager. It wasn't much in Connecticut dollars, but Mr. Apps was happy and secure. He bought a home, put his children in Boy Scouts and the city soccer leagues and spent many summers on North Carolina's Outer Banks.
But at 2 p.m. on Feb. 19, 1991, Mr. Apps said, "the bottom fell from under my feet." Like many other corporations, his employer was reducing its staff. He and 12 other mid-level managers were given 20 minutes to clear their desks.
Over the next several months, he sent out hundreds of resumes but got only a handful of interviews and no job offers. The last interview, with a telecommunications equipment company, was the most demeaning.
"I could tell from the start that I was not the person they were looking for, but I really needed the job and tried to talk them into hiring me," said Mr. Apps. "The desperation came through. I talked about how long I had been out of work and how much I
wanted to work.
"In other words, I was begging for a job."
To make ends meet, he digs ditches for a landscaping company and barters his services for goods. For a while, he worked in a science lab, washing test tubes and Petri dishes, but he gave that job up after five weeks because he made more money on unemployment.
"I hear people saying, 'Anyone can get a job if they really want to,' " he said. "Well, they are right. I could get a job flipping burgers, but then my kids won't have health benefits. We won't have heat or lights. And I won't have a car.
"I feel like I've failed my family."
To fight his depression, Mr. Apps attends meetings of the unemployment support group in Waterbury. The group was founded by Susan Tolhurst, now recognized as one of the state's most diligent unemployment advocates. It meets every Thursday in the auditorium of the town's public library.
Members sit in a semicircle and begin each meeting by introducing themselves and giving a brief description of the kind of work they are seeking. Often they come armed with networking tips or job leads for their fellow members.
Their occasional laughter and faithful participation indicate that the members harbor at least a glimmer of hope. Mrs. Tolhurst says that when people miss a series of meetings, she assumes that they either got a job -- only a third of the 20 original members have so far -- or are so depressed that they are not leaving home.
Felicia Buccio, 34, who worked 11 years as a marketing and promotions specialist before losing her job last May, returned to the group last week after several weeks' absence.
"I wasn't getting anywhere," she said, her eyes widening. "I said . . . 'What am I doing wrong?' I was so discouraged that I took myself out of the job market. I didn't get out of bed before 9, and I watched television all day. I started wondering, was it my hair? Is it my age?"
Instilling self-confidence is one of the main missions of all the groups.
"It's OK to wrap your arms around yourself and squeeze," said Sydney Blackwood, speaking before an over-50 support group in Middletown, about 30 miles west of Hartford. "If you go into an interview feeling as though you are going to be rejected, then it will become a reality."
The support groups are also the foundation for a fledgling political movement.
Two weeks ago, in Philadelphia, leaders of unemployment support groups from throughout the Northeast and from as far west as Chicago met to discuss strategies for a high-profile campaign to win public support for the elimination of taxes on unemployment benefits and the provision of health care benefits for unemployed families.
Mrs. Tolhurst says the groups are also pressing for laws that would prohibit mortgage companies from foreclosing on a house owned by an unemployed person and, most importantly, incentives for the creation of new jobs.
Kit Beatty, 31, has joined those efforts.
She began attending the support group in Waterbury to help relieve the depression she suffered when she lost her job last March and had to abandon her apartment and sleep in her 1982 Nissan Sentra.
"In the beginning, I was grasping at straws trying to figure out what I was doing wrong," said Ms. Beatty, who now rents an attic.
"But the group helped me see that it's not my fault. It's not anything any of us did wrong. We were just at the wrong place at the wrong time."