Posted on 12/06/2008 10:12:29 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
About a week ago, I read that seniors are under-represented at food banks, meal services and other help outlets.
This was certainly not the first time I have read or heard this.
One reason that is repeatedly advanced for the under-representation is that many seniors lived through The Great Depression of the 1930s, an era when people thought several times before spending even one of their hard-earned pennies.
They also learned how to get the most out of what they bought. The people of that era just automatically recycled.
Once expired, Eaton’s and Simpson Sears catalogues (each referred to as The Bible by many), along with The Weekly Free Press and The Farmers’ Almanac, found themselves in an outhouse that was bitterly cold during a prairie winter and hot and fly-ridden in the summer.
Today, even many singles have at least two bathrooms.
Back then, most of these people had no phone nor electricity bills because they had no phones nor electricity.
They only lit a small oil lamp when there was no company. In the summer, they were in bed before dark.
Obviously, these people did not have an oil lamp burning in each room.
These are the same people you’re most likely to see today turning off lights in unoccupied rooms.
Even the Queen goes around doing that!
The people who lived through the Depression and World War II also incurred no expenditures connected with cell phones, Blackberrys, DVDs, electric typewriters, computers and printers and TVs because they didn’t yet exist.
Today, individuals who’ve grown up with these items can’t imagine life without them.
Strange as it may seem to today’s younger folk, during the Depression and the dark days of World War II, a time of food rationing and belt tightening, there were, apparently, few if any complaints.
Maybe people were too busy working and giving thanks for what they had.
I am reminded of a picture I had hanging on my kitchen wall for decades of a humble-appearing elderly gent sitting at a simple table with this head bowed and his hands clasped giving thanks for his meal of a bowl of tomato soup, a piece of bread, and an apple.
There were no food banks, no free meals, no maternity leave, no subsidized housing, no unemployment insurance, no social assistance, no Old Age Security, no supplement and no health nor dental insurance.
One simply worked hard at whatever job one could get and stood on one’s own feet as best one could.
If one was allergic to hard work, there were simply few fruits of labour to enjoy.
Those who lived on farms were, perhaps, more fortunate than professionals in towns because they could grow their own gardens, keep bees and raise poultry, hogs, cattle, horses and sheep.
As a result, most experienced no shortage of food.
Sheep were sheared, wool was spun, and the family had lovely warm home-knit sweaters, toques, stockings, socks, scarves and mittens.
Entertainment was bountiful and inexpensive.
One could play baseball, walk on stilts, swim in a nearby river, run two-legged and wheel barrow races, play board games and the piano, sit on the porch in the evenings—and talk.
The 1970s TV series The Waltons depicted life during the Depression very well.
These were proud people who asked for little or no help other than, perhaps, to build a barn, a one-room school or to make a feather bed, situations that were actually enjoyable community events.
Many became quite well off, relatively speaking.
As for those who didn’t, they still count themselves among those proud people who stood on their own two feet and helped make Canada the great country that it is.
So, is it any wonder that these people, who are now seniors, are hugely under-represented at food banks and other help outlets?
They learned to take care of themselves.
************
Elsie Dawe is a Kelowna-based freelance writer and retired educator.
elsiedawe@shaw.ca
great post
“About a week ago, I read that seniors are under-represented at food banks, meal services and other help outlets.”
1935 to today is over 70 years those people have lived out their lives and have been on their pensions, social security, payed off housing and furniture, medi whatever all that stuff is, why would they be competing with 30 and 40 and 50 year olds that are in bad situations.
My mother knew all that stuff, living as a share cropper’s daughter, and the dust bowl and such, and as a single mom with an eighth grade education raising three boys, she taught me how to survive, but her life stabilized more than a quarter century ago with a modest level of guaranteed security.
Another reason for underrepresentation is that seniors have gamed the system...looting the current workforce to support Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. They bought their houses when real estate was cheap and property taxes were low, paid off the debt, and enjoy the appreciation despite the down turn in the economy.
Thanks to AARP and other geezer lobbyists, Gen X and Y have been screwed over by the “Greatest Generation” and the spoiled Baby Boomers that followed.
Remember that when Social Security was started, it wasn’t designed to pay out until 2 years after the average life expectancy of an American at that time, i.e. a safety net in case you lived longer than average. Today, seniors milk it for 10-15+ years beyond that...and current workers subsidize it.
Not just knocking seniors. The welfare state subsidizes “the children” with mismanaged public schools and freebie healthcare, illegals and their kids, and a bunch of other nonsense (see the Detroit 3 bailout that’s coming).
But to claim seniors are a frugal bunch is a load of b.s. Maybe those in their 90s. Those in 60s and 70s are typically conspicuous consumers who are looting the next generations’ wealth. There are exceptions but the majority are second-handers living off a system gamed to screw the rest of us.
Wow, Elsie Dawe is older than me.
Great article.....my Mom lived the era as well. She invented copper wire fighting over pennies I think !....:o)
We try to emulate and learn from them and what they went thru. It would be insane to ignore that it can happen again. Folks need to be prepared and get a new hobby called frugal living !
A elderly neighbor who is a very very good housekeeper is one heck of a pack rat ! She saves wire ties, paper and plastic sacks, coffee cans , makes all kinds of crafts and sells em at local flea markets for spending money .....she is a child of the depression and nothing went to waste unless it really was just waste !
Good generation that all can learn from and should ! With bar codes and computers etc there is about 18 hours of food on the shelves of a grocery store if a run was made on em due a simple truckers strike.
Be prepared folks.....if it never happens then so be it !
Haven't you heard? Conservatives aren't supposed to like the CCC.
My late Dad seems a tad bit older than yours. He married my mother in 1927, lost everything in 29 & 30.
He was in ROTC; served in the Calvary (horses, not armor!) between the wars; CCC, then WPA projects.
Late 30’s, lived in a tent for several months, with three kids & my Mom, until he could get a cabin built in his time off, while working on the Shasta Dam Project’s railroad & highway rerouting.
Civilian heavy equipment operator on the Alcan Highway in WWII.
My sister was born in the cabin; I came at the end of the war.
While growing up, and long after, there was always a deer in the freezer, fruit trees, and a garden in the yard...and at least one or more kids to keep it weeded.
Being construction, there was a fair amount of moving, but circumstances permitting, there was also a chicken yard &/or rabbit hutches.
Later, food banks/pantries were something you volunteered to make deliveries for, not stand in line at.
...
I saw a food stamp woman in the store the other day whose son had clothes and shoes on that I estimated as costing over $500. And she was blinged to the hilt. Wanna bet she has a Direct TV dish on her Section 8 home?
The "poor" in America today are what these Depression survivors would have called middle class. And yet the left never stops whining about a nation which has never been richer. We have lost out collective minds.
As an aside, I think the sorts of seniors she's talking about are the very elderly who lived through the 30's. The oldest baby boomers these days are 62 which many would consider seniors, but they are a very, very different sort of person.
“They bought their houses when real estate was cheap and property taxes were low, paid off the debt, and enjoy the appreciation despite the down turn in the economy.”
Following that through, I’m assuming that most of them left their real property to their kids, thereby enriching “our” generation?
“A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was Texas town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.
As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger...he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with Adventures, mysteries and comedies.
If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball> game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped Talking, but Dad didn’t seem to mind.
Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)
Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home... Not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn’t permit the liberal use of alcohol. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular Basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished.
He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.
I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked... And NEVER asked to leave.
More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents’ den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.
His name?.... .. .
We just call him ‘TV.’ “
My grandparents left Missouri in 1884 as part of a wagon train. All their possessions in a wagon drawn by oxen. My dad was born on the western end of the journey in 1887.
Dad was 20 years older than my mom. The two of them brought five kids through the depression and had four more on this side of it. I was the last of nine. The oldest a brother is still alive at 84.
The greatest legacy left to me, and all my brothers and sisters, is that we can survive. I can go for a month with $5 spending money in my pocket, and have half of it left over. Things get fixed rather than replaced. Generally by me. Shoes get worn out. Food doesn’t get wasted.
Keep food on hand. Food that won’t spoil.
Times were tough in the depression, no doubt. People were generally tougher. And they helped each other. My family has many stories of families helping each other get through.
My dad had very colorful language, as many of that era had. A joint project of my brother and I has been remembering and writing down, in booklet form, some of his words and phrasing. To describe how difficult things were, just consider “California slippers.” That was my dad’s term for gunny sacks wrapped around your shoes during the winter. It worked well during cold weather.
Another term he used was “Idaho silk.” That was the wire used to bind baled hay. A vast array of items could be repaired using Idaho silk and a pair of pliers.
I thank God regularly for the treasure my parents left me.
My dad was born in 1925. I am a late baby boomer (1960)
Wow...great analogy! thanks for posting that.
This reminded me of my dear mawmaw, she was so resourceful and kind hearted. She once told me that every generation gets wiser, but weaker...she was so right.
My parents house, where I was born: $3,500 1945, BUT wages to match. Also, there wasn't any "creative financing" back then; you either had the 20% down (conventional) or no loan.
When I hit high school in 1960, minimum wage was still $1.10, and tax brackets were sky high, though FICA was lower, & "medicare taxes" weren't even a gleam in Texas Representative LBJ's lying eyeballs.
My Dad was comparatively rich, for a working person: in a good month, in 1953-55, he could gross $900-$1,000.
BUT to do it, he had to put in 6-12's, and an 8, for three weeks out of 4 in the Saudi Arabian desert as a heavy equipment operator for ARAMCO. That was 3 80 hour weeks, and then a 40-48 hour week, with a couple of days off.
Oh, and that called for an 18 month contract, and for any US income tax break (but not Saudi taxes) he had to stay outside the US the entire 18 months, including his year-end vacation.
We got not much at all from their last house, and don't begrudge it a bit; Mom & Dad needed to live on it.
In 1968 he broke his neck (none-fatal, non paralyzing) in a job site accident in Libya. He was first denied insurance compensation for 3 years, until the court finally ruled that his copy of the policy & the monthly pay stub showing deductions for the premiums were adequate proof he had coverage; then it was another two years in courts until the further insurance company delays wore him down enough to settle for less than 30 cents on the dollar face amount of the policy. Their lawyer flat told him that they could easily keep the case going for another 5 years, if not longer.
We have it EASY.
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