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
Good many put meat on the table by hunting too.
Rabbit and squirrel, dove or pidgeon was not considered unfit for consumption.
And many knew how too cook..no McDonald happy meals.
Of course, some people actually DESERVE to make good livings that way.
I'm sure that was the one she was referencing. Here is a similar one of an older lady saying grace. I always thought they were by the same artist, but they're not. The above is entitled Gratitude by Jack Garren.
Also under the war generation and the Boomers SS was expanded to cover children, and the disabled. Instead of paying up front they looted the system and SSDi is one of the greatest scams today.
Following that through, I’m assuming that most of them left their real property to their kids, thereby enriching “our” generation?
Are you kidding? Most that I know have cashed in and have moved to retirement villages and will be paying down all they have to assisted living and nursing homes.
I grew up durring the last one.
A full blown depression is exactly what 3 generations since then need.
It’s the only way they will learn ro not live on borrowed money and become fiscally responsible.
All these bailous are jusr going t6 prolong the depression.
“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.”
At 71 both myself and my wife work and if it’s competing with your ability to make a living too damn bad!
We don’t owe anyone cent and have never borrowed to buy anything but a home that was paid off over 15 years ago.
But then again.....
“some people” run their mouths often, but not well. Certainly not well enough to make a good living from the running of their mouth...
and are, ergo, quite jealous of those that can.....
and DO!
passed away in his eighties, still refusing “Meals on Wheels” because he viewed it as charity and thought he didn’t need it.
It is charity.
““They bought their houses when real estate was cheap and property taxes were low,”
I don’t know hou you come up with that, we bought our home in 66 for $34k when I was making $3.50/hr. and my wife didn’t work but we had saved $7k for a down payment on that wage and lower on the prior 8 years.
$34k would be over $400k in todays money.
“There’s a great truth in the article, but anyone who was born in 1930 (and wouldn’t have been old enough to be cognizant of life during the Depression) would now be about 78 years old.”
You’re wrong I was educated on a daily basis from the time I could sit up in a high chair.
The entire world situation was discussed at every meal (no one could eat a meal unless everyone was at the table) and just being a kid was no excuse for not joining in on the conversation.
I knew more when I started kindergarden than high school “graduates” do today.
“Thanks for clarifying SS’s retirement age. That surprised me. I thought I had read it was 65”
The last year you could collect fuull at 65 was if you were born in 37,
after that you have to wait 1 month longer for every year that you were born after 37.
Medicare still starts at 65.
“At 71 both myself and my wife work and if it’s competing with your ability to make a living too damn bad!”
“We don’t owe anyone cent and have never borrowed to buy anything but a home that was paid off over 15 years ago.”
You misinterpreted my post, the author said that people from the 1930s were not seen competing for resources at food banks and other places where desperate 30, 40, and 50 year old people are getting help.
I said of course not, people that remember the 1930s would have found some level of financial stability many years ago (not wealth, not easy street, but stability through a varying amount of guaranteed and accumulated income or assets such as almost no monthly housing costs).
“where desperate 30, 40, and 50 year old people are getting help.”
Right there is why we need a depression!
That age group has no idea how to live responsibly.
I was taught to never buy anything on credit, if you can’t pay for it you don’t need it.
I’ve adheared mto that even for my airplane that cost 3 times what our home did, I waited until I had the cash to pay for it.
Also to never have less than 6 months earnings in savings for emergancy which i’ve done since I had a paper route when I was 8, usually about 2 years reserve.
Well, actually, in his case, I would have paid for his Meals on Wheels. I’d also cooked for MOW years ago and delivered some. It’s volunteer work, but one can choose to pay per meal if they can afford it.
I read your other posts and your ignorant post to me that you didn’t apologize for, you are just an angry old man lashing out at everyone on this thread.
Too bad that you never learned how to live.
If you have lived on credit to this point I hope you wind up living under a bush with nothing to eat along with anyone else that lives on credit!!
Tell me about it . . my husband was going to wait until he’s 70 to start drawing social security. Strangely enough, someone at the office ran the numbers for him and talked him into going ahead and starting it right now - at 66 - because he would come out better. He will still work as long as possible, though will probably still have to pay taxes. We don’t want to totally quit as he’s one of the few people who do the job (or even WANTS to do the job he has done for the past 35 years). It sort of feels odd “drawing” something soon, but we’ve paid in enough and for a long time. Don’t want to depend on it, though.
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