OAKMONT, Pennsylvania -- Four years ago, Douglas Hohman turned old enough to vote. He had turned 18 years old in May, yet, for a number of reasons, he never got around to voting for either President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump.
The year 2020, Hohman explained, was not the best for him.
"It was my senior year when COVID hit, and I missed out on so many things I had been looking forward to: my senior prom on the Gateway Clipper, the senior walk parents do with their parents at Penn Hill High School football field at graduation, and just overall sense of belonging," Hohman said.
The now-22-year-old from Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, works at Oakmont Bakery, doing janitorial work and helping customers who need extra hands carrying their cakes back to the car, especially if the cakes are oversized, as mine was.
The traffic was so bad in Oakmont that I had to park several blocks away from the bakery. I did not fully calculate that I would have to do the walk back while carrying a full sheet cake for my grandchildren's combined birthdays the next day.
Hohman stepped up to carry it for me. We started talking during the four-block walk back to the car, and the topic of the election came up. I asked Hohman if he was registered to vote. To be honest, he looked younger than 22 years old. His answer was one I've heard from many people who are not registered.
"No, ma'am. I forgot, and now it's too late," he said sheepishly.
Actually, it wasn't too late. A new voter registration in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is accepted until Oct. 21.
Hohman smiled and promised to do just that.
Three days later, I called the bakery to see if Hohman would be willing to discuss whether he had done just that, and another day later, he called me and proudly said he had.
"I really regret not voting in 2020. I now understand that every vote does count, and President Biden won our state by several thousand other young people just like me who didn't think they count," he said. "If anything, we count the most, and we have the most responsibility to show up because we are the future of the country."
After high school, Hohman said he went to work full time at a local landscaper, where he enjoyed the outside work, before coming to Oakmont Bakery last year.
"This is a true old-school family business where the owners, Marc and Tony, know everyone's name who works for them and pretty much everything about them," he said of the Serrao family, who run the massive Oakmont Bakery, which people drive to from miles around.
Marc Serrao entered the bakery business unconventionally. He worked in construction with his father, mainly in sewers, and found his passion, similar to Hohman, working as a janitor at a much smaller donut shop.
"My father was a contractor, and I ended up doing a lot of concrete work for him, and I hated it. I really didn't like working in sewers, so when I was 13, I started working at a donut shop in Penn Hills, it's called the Donut Shack, as their cleaning guy," Serrao explained.
When the Oakmont Bakery was a tiny neighborhood shop, Serrao bought it from the family of the owner, who had died of an unexpected heart attack just one week after opening. Thirty-plus years later, the father of five now employs more than 200 people, and during the holidays, he sees 400 dozen dinner rolls walk out the door every hour.
Hohman, similar to Serrao, doesn't see himself working as a janitor for the rest of his life.
"I am looking to attend the University of Pittsburgh (at) Johnstown campus to study journalism," he said.
Hohman said the past four years have been brutal for his family.
"I am living with my father (Hohman's mother died in 2016). He is retired, on a fixed income, and he cannot afford the basic needs. He is struggling living on a fixed income. Well, inflation does not care if your income isn't increasing. It just keeps on increasing. And I think it is important to add that those grocery costs, or gas costs, have never gone down," Hohman added.
So, what party did Hohman register for?
"A Republican. Donald Trump will get my vote. So will (Senate candidate) Dave McCormick. I just wish I had done this four years ago. Maybe things would have been different for a lot of people, not just me."
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