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
Bump
i appreciate your rant, but i kinda feel like i’m listening to some radical lefty professor who’s classes i loved to walk out of
you forget, ‘seniors’ have paid into social security all their natural lives, (as well as supporting social services programs with taxdollars) and have survived and built a robust rebublic in between wars that demanded sacrifice from them and that helped form the republic as we now know it. More children have attended college under both generations than in the history of the world, usually at their parents’ expense. Thanks to the medical and technological advances of both the ‘greatest generation’ as well as the boomer generation, “conspiciuous consumption” has created millions upon millions of jobs that couldn’t have even been dreamed of 50 years ago and provided the funding to preserve literally billions of lives against hunger, disease and infant mortality and has opened up the stars and space to exploration by your generation.
Consumption (created by the wages of innovation), being the driver of any economy, we invite the X and Y and IPOD generations to step up to the plate, and accomplish some medical and technological innovations of their own, other than the cloaked suggestion of some simplistic stalinistic philosopy of punishing the elderly for actuallly getting old i.e., forced euthenasia of the elderly as a solution to the republic’s problems. In a robust, healthy, innovative society such as has been left to Generations X Y and IPOD, the cost of taking care of their own elderly (or disabled or indigent), should be viewed as a moral obligation and a duty, not a burden to begrudge and bemoan.
The falicy in the arguement for ageism is, you cannot carry it out equally once you start.
best regards, blu
I think NOT.
My son, now in his late twentys described a past Christmas for me.
It was winter time, wet and cold and misrable. His outfit always moved, so no real place to stay.
They found a bombed out building where the remaining walls would provide good cover, the remaining roof kept the rian off of him and his buddies.
They took up a collection and purchased a local Hadji stove (kerosene wick) to heat thier meals.
On Chirstmas day, a small miricale - part of the mail arrived. One of the boxes was “To any service member” and contained some melted chocklet and small string of colored light powered by a battery.
The lights went into an interior room (light discipline) with a small treee made from “trash” (I have no idea).
Nobody shot at them for a couple of days and they thought it was great - time with friends to enjoy the season, heat some warm food and sleep.
Many in his company were under 20 at the time, and Anbar really sucked.
This Christmas - he lost his room mate - another re-re-re-redeployment, this time to Bosnia, so he will be gone for at least a year. We think one of his travel buddies from Japan will move in till summer so the place won’t be so empty.
WHen I asked him what he could use for Christmas - he just wanted a bag of dogfood for his buddy - Bozer (a Basset hound). He was happy as a clam - a whole roof, running water (hot no less!) food in the fridge, a full time job even.
I like to think my son understands Christmas...
We sure as heck do, he is home with us and has started with his bad jokes, indeed, a real Christmas.
For you FReepers - may this be a good time for you and your family.
Nice article. I think it’s romanticized however. People don’t LIKE suffering and will try to avoid it whenever possible. FDR was able to take advantage of the bad economy to push his social programs, as Obama will with this recession. It’s much better to be a conservative nation and uphold principles of low taxation and limited government and then America can excel and prosper and there will be no need to suffer. But obviously not enough people remember the Reagan years, much less the 1930s.
If a Democratic president had left his hands off of the Social Security Trust Fund, today, we would have more than enough funds in the SS Trust fund to pay the Social Security benefits and have more than enough to pay for your benefits when you retire.
Thank Lyndon Johnson for the mess that Social Security is today.
What is coming is even worse than what these strong and proud people lived through.
The Comptroller General of the United States has been trying to warn of the impending crisis for years, yet no one has listened, not the media, not our President(s), and not our congress.
When I say “impending crisis” I do not mean what we’re going through now. What’s coming is far worse, and our current debt is far higher than anyone is reporting-
Right now the government has over 12 trillion in total liabilities.
Plus unfunded liabilities in SS at 7 trillion.
Plus unfunded liabilities in Medicare (A, B, and D) at 34 trillion.
This equals a total liability right now of 53 trillion, which comes to approx $175,000 per person, and approx $453,000 per household.
In other words “we’re fu@ked”.
I would hardly call those in their 60’s senior citizens. (although I believe social security states one can collect when they turn 65)
But, This article is discussing those who lived through the depression which would be those probably be those born in the 20’s,30’s or before if they are still alive.
Most of the seniors who are living off of Medicare discussed in this article are the ones who fully invested in it, to make it sound like seniors are ‘milking the system’ just sounds wrong.
Thank you and I am sorry he lost his roommate.
My parents were born in 1922. Mom was raised in a mule barn on a families piece of land in the Oklahoma hills. My grandparents turned that mule barn into a “home” where they raised three girls during the depression. Later, as an officer & officers wife, my parents recycled just about any and everything. Tin foil, ziplock baggies, rubberbands, socks, etc. When a towel wore out, mom turned it into a hand towel. When that wore out, it became a wash cloth. On and on until it became a “rag” for cleaning. I was 26 years old before I had a store bought dress. Didn’t even think about it, but had to have a dress one day quicker than my mom (a beautiful seamstress) could make it. My dad had a garden every place we ever lived. And, a worm garden... always ready to fish. After my parents died, I was amazed at what they had saved. And I was amazed that they could have lived for months without going to the grocery store.
Social Security can be collected at a reduced rate at age 62 !
Bunk! The life depicted in that series was far too liberal and cushy! Dancing! Long hair? Relaxing? Sassing Mother or Father? Unheard of!
Regards,
Listen, what people learned from the 30s and the 40s is the fallacy that the President sits in Washington before a massive machine of dials and levers that merely need the proper turns and pulls to fix any problem we have. That fallacy was made into curriculum and is now the predominant belief among the population. We can fight amongst ourselves here about why seniors aren’t at the food bank in the same number as other groups, but that just takes away from the real problem which is how socialism has taken such deep hold and how we’re going to roll it back.
Now that there's funny, I don't care who you are.
Both my mother and father were young adults during the Depression. Both are gone now, but true to this article's definition, they "recycled" everything. Virtually nothing was thrown away until it was used several times for other purposes. My mother grew up on a small farm in Georgia. She told me once that they were so poor they hardly knew there was a Depression. They grew almost everything they ate. Money really wasn't an issue because they so rarely had any.
A lot of that rubbed off on me. Being 45, I'm bringing up the rear end of the baby boomer's, but I still live much like they taught. I own a small farm and we grow a large portion of what we eat. We fill up the pantry every summer with lots of good things out of the garden. I learned to pressure can veggies as a child watching my mother. The rest, meat, flour, etc., we buy from other local farmers. Very little comes from the grocery store in our home. I'm a serious pack rat, too. I save things for reuse, just like my parents did. Not everyone in my generation has been spoiled by materialism, although most have. It will be interesting to see how some folks survive the next few years. We are nowhere near the bottom yet....
Those in line daily are the soldados of the reconquista, with their "anchor babies" in arm.
Food banks in North Texas are nothing more than supply depots for the reconquista soldados.
The average SS check is about $975 per month or $11,700 per year.
There are about 50 million recipients.
That totals about $585 billion annual payout.
[Note that many of the beneficiaries/recipients have paid in to the system for decades.]
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Wall Street bail out $700 billion (2008). Add $150 billion in Congressional pork. Add AIG bailout. Add auto industry bailout. Credit card companies. Student loans. Yada yada yada.
Estimates are that these bailouts will be nearing $1.2 trillion (or more) by early next year.
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I continue to be surprised by how many “conservatives” cry rivers over things like Social Security and minimum wage increases which tend to benefit people, but they have no problem in the government subsidizing businesses by $billion, even $trillions.
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And contrary to rumors, SS/Medicare is still solvent for several decades.
Yes. I remember the outhouse with the Sears & Roebuck catalog pages (torn out as needed) instead of Charmin. That was in the early fifties for me. - My Daddy, who was born in the 1920’s lived through it all, the CCC camps, WWII combat, and passed away in his eighties, still refusing “Meals on Wheels” because he viewed it as charity and thought he didn’t need it.
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