A number of years ago I found a very old can of “powered scrambled eggs” down in the cellar at my grandparents home. It had font like the old “western town” signs, lol. I asked my grandma what it was, and she told me about the depression. How even people that had jobs and small gardens were still short on food. And how many people had really suffered. So the government gave away some things to “help”, like those powdered eggs in a can. She also said how awful it had felt to take any kind of “welfare”.
She said she didn’t even know why she still had it down in the root cellar.
She also had a huge double deep-freeze chest down there. And shelves that were filled with home canned goods. Until they got into their seventies, she always canned a ton of stuff every year from the garden they grew. When she got older, she shopped the specials and sales, and kept her shelves LOADED even though there were only three of them living at the house then.
Her parents had been dairy farmers. It was simply a way of life to have a large pantry.
Over the years she had supplied her grown children, her grown grandchildren, and a great grandchild or two, with stuff from that pantry in the fruit cellar, and spare sheets, towels, pots and pans and dishes. We all shopped in Grammys root cellar. We all came on hard times, and she came to the rescue so we didn’t have to go get the “gubermint cheese”.
She also had a wood/coal cooking stove down there that they kept going in the winters. Things can get very unpredictable here in NY. There was no point in taking chances, and it kept the floors warm - which helped aching elderly joints. Such stoves are rare to find and expensive now.
We have a pantry. We use coupons. We were secure when the second massive flood happened in a four year period this past fall.
I remember how relieved I felt knowing that although all of the stores were closed, many roads closed, etc., we could get along perfectly well for at least several weeks. AND help the neighbors if they needed anything.
So many families here suffered for lack of foresight. They had to wait in lines for water and peanut butter.
It’s best to have a pantry like the old days, :). Sure beats the MRE stuff.
In 2000 we had a flood. It started raining about midnight and by 6AM we had over 20 inches of rain. All told we got over 30 inches of rain in 2 days.
My sister and I were at my mothers house going up and down the road cleaning the storm drains trying to get as much drainage as we could.
About 11AM on the first day of the flood, a guy from across the street came out and the first thing out of his mouth was wondering when the govt food trucks were going to be coming around to feed people.
Electricity was still on. Water was still working. Houses weren’t really flooded in that area just the streets were flooded. Yet this clown was looking for a govt handout.
My sister told him a food center had been set up in town a distance of about 5 blocks. He didn’t want to walk the 5 blocks. I told him the two stores across the highway were open, that was only about 2 blocks away. He didn’t want to walk the 2 blocks he wanted somebody to bring the food to his door.
This guy didn’t know who my sister and I were when he said if the food trucks weren’t there by noon we should all get together and go in these rich peoples house and take their food. He was pointing at my mothers house.
I informed him if he so much as stepped foot on that property i was going to shoot his ass. So much for being a good neighbor. Oh well, he got the message.
People that live on handouts will take when they don’t get their handouts and it doesn’t take them 3 days to start taking.