Some time ago, I got the chance to do something for a few colleagues. I made chicken soup, enough to fill a 5-gallon stockpot, divided it into containers, and gave the containers to them. It's been a rough year so far; none of us got raises, and three of my co-workers are homeowners with high repair costs to make on aging homes. One has to worry about a leaky roof; another's air conditioner died during a brief heat wave in March; the third has a child who's recovering from back-to-back bowel surgeries--one to remove polyps, the second after an iliac infection. While the first two made me wince for the sheer amount of cash they had to pay out, the third woman is a good personal as well as professional friend. (By the way, the little girl is recovering beautifully, and has adjusted to using a colostomy bag.)
My own financial situation isn't that great--I'm paying off debts, but it feels like I take one step forward and one step back. But I love feeding people. In this economy, it feels like it's the only thing I can do to help.
I'm writing this after reading Muskegon Critic's diary about signing up for government assistance. I understand how shame can keep you from signing up for any kind of help, let alone seeking it out in the first place.
My father was a young boy when the Great Depression sank its teeth into the U.S.; Mom was a Depression baby, born in April of 1929. My paternal grandfather sold vegetables from a wheelbarrow, scraping together the money to start his own grocery in Bellefontaine, Ohio; my maternal grandfather was a coal miner who worked in many of Harlan County's mines. Both were hard, cold men who eyed the government with suspicion and dislike. Papa Louis, my father's father, was an illegal immigrant from Sicily, who claimed to have killed a cop once he got to New York City; Grandpa Bennett ran moonshine on the side and held dice games to supplement his income from mining--he won the farm he retired to in Bloomfield, Indiana, in a dice game when the other guy offered the deed in a winner-take-all throw. Both had a lot to lose if the government scrutinized their activities and backgrounds, and so they pounded self-reliance into their children's heads. Don't look to anyone to help you, was what my parents learned at their fathers' hands. Crying won't help you, and prayer won't do you no good, as the song says; just work, look for a chance, and grab what you can when you find it.
There was one difference between my grandfathers. Papa Louis made a conscious decision, when the family was going hungry in 1927, to let the weakest family members starve. Those weakest family members were my father's baby sisters, 2 years and 8 months, respectively. Papa Louis just apportioned the food each day so that all the little girls got was a little milk and water. Mama was so terrified of her husband that she let him have his way. Dad told Mom years later of holding his littlest sister in his arms, rocking and singing to her in the hopes that she would stop whimpering and go to sleep. Not so Grandpa Bennett. He made the decision to not only feed his family, but keep others fed. He not only planted a garden in every coal camp he lived in, he shared its fruits with anyone who passed by. If a stranger walked by the porch before suppertime, Grandpa would lean forward from the steps and yell, "Hey there . . . you hungry? Come on in, and get you something to eat." If the stranger should say, "No thanks, I'm not hungry," Grandpa would respond, "Well, then, come in and eat so you won't get hungry."
My parents never signed up for any kind of financial assistance. They were poor during their entire marriage; Mom only started making real money after the divorce, and even then she was working two jobs at a time. There were times when I'm sure they could have taken food stamps at least, to feed my brothers and, later, me. They could have taken us to County hospitals instead of scraping the cash together to make sure we got the best medical care they could afford. Dad broke his back working as a roofer, lost three businesses due to run-ins with the neighborhood "protection" racketeers, and had three fingers amputated after an awful factory accident involving a bench press; yet his and Mom's determination to take care of themselves made seeking out any kind of "help" unacceptable.
What broke Mom's resolve, in the end, was me. We moved from Chicago to Phoenix in 1979, and Mom found that factory work in a right-to-work state paid vastly less than factory work in unionized Chicago. It paid so much less, in fact, that she went through dumpsters to find me clothes I could wear when I was in fifth grade. (My teacher actually asked me where I got such pretty dresses. The look on her face when I answered, truthfully, still causes me to snicker--it wasn't as if they were made from garbage, after all.) A family "friend" robbed us of her savings when I was 13. Then Mom got fired from her job when her boss told her she'd start working the night shift, or else.
Unemployment benefits ran out for her after three months, and she hadn't found a job yet. We ran out of money two weeks later, and food several days after that. We kept ourselves going on sugar water, and when the sugar ran out, just water. That lasted one day, and I remember crying because my stomach hurt so badly from not having any real food. I tried to stifle it because I was terrified of hurting Mom's feelings. I knew it wasn't her fault that she couldn't find work. I told her that, if she thought it would be all right, I'd walk down to the local convenience store and ask if they had any food they were going to throw away.
That's when Mom broke.
I was on summer vacation, thankfully, so I didn't have to leave the house. She called to find out what she needed to do to sign up for food stamps. Fifteen minutes later, she told me she was going down to the EDD office, and she'd be back as soon as possible. Like an omen, one of our neighbors came by with a few cans of soup that her kids wouldn't eat, so Mom and I had a brief meal before she left.
She got the food stamps. She also got directions to the local food bank, and an application for paid G.E.D. education. An organization called Chicanos Por La Causa paid her a small amount each week to take classes that would let her earn her G.E.D. Mom passed the test with flying colors, and got a job two days later working for yet another factory, Aero Springs--but that's another story.
The point is that we're all steeped in this mythology that America is the country where you achieve anything you want if you just "raise yourself by your own bootstraps." The truth is, the only thing you do when you haul on your bootstraps is to put on a pair of boots. Real achievements always include the door of opportunity being opened by a helping hand. That's what the social safety net of unemployment benefits, Medicaid/Medicare, Social Security/SSI, and food stamps are meant to be--the hand opening the door of opportunity for those who find themselves walled in by misfortune.
My mother swallowed her pride in self-reliance for my sake. Her father not only did what he could to feed his family, he extended himself to help others, and made himself that open door. And I've thought about how important that is for all of us to do, from every citizen of us right up to the government. There are few things that build trust between people better than sharing food, comfort, and aid. For the most part, our government has come to the aid of the American people. The recent instance of its failure to do so, the Katrina disaster, is a searing example of what happens when government "of the people, by the people, for the people" forgets that its foremost job is to protect and help the people.
So as the economy shudders and chokes like a '75 Chevy Vega, and the stimulus funds in one state or another get held up by state legislators arguing over how to spend to money, I resolve to do my bit to hold up the safety net. I know which of my colleagues are in need of occasional help. Now it's time to see who else around me is in need. Someone else may not want to apply for food stamps, or else their benefits have run out completely. And if I can even give just a bowl of soup to feed someone, well, that's one meal less they'll have to worry about.
ETA: Thanks to HansScholl for adding this diary to the Rescue List!