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1:36 PM I read this recommended diary, "The year we stole a Christmas tree."
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1:42 PM I comment in this diary
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1:43 PM I go back and read the diary again
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1:48 PM I read the comments
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2:01 PM I'm back in 1987
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1987 We live in south-central Michigan. My dad is a journeyman union carpenter. Really, really great at what he does. President of his Local. The construction job he works for does a lot of work for commercial/industrial companies.
Some auto plants close. Lots of people get laid off. Demand for construction tanks. My dad gets laid off. He's a quiet guy. He keeps things to himself. I'm 7. I've never seen him cry. Ever.
There's no work. There's no money.
A new McDonald's is hiring in our town. He fills out an application and waits in line over 2 hours for an interview. They reject him. They say he's overqualified. They say he won't stick around and he'll leave when the economy picks back up.
He's worried. Things are piling up. Money's running low. One night, when my sister and I were supposed to be sleeping, I see him cry. I don't even know what to think. I don't want him to see that I see him. I go back to my bed and I am scared.
We started getting free cheese and rice and powdered milk and peanut butter. My dad grows corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, and other vegetables in a garden he made behind a hill in our backyard. At Halloween, he grows pumpkins in his garden for my sister and me to carve jack-o-lanterns. My mom cooks the insides and bakes the seeds, which my dad seems to like but I think is gross.
He spends a lot of time in his garden, especially on Saturdays. He likes to work and he works hard. He has a need to work, even if he cannot find a job. He can not bear to fail to provide for his family.
He finally found a job working the midnight shift at a gas station. My mom worries late into the night. Bad economies mean midnight shift gas station armed robberies. My dad is risking his life every night for 5.25 an hour.
We get food stamps. I've just turned 8, I don't know what "food stamps" means. My mom takes my sister and me to the store to buy groceries. We cannot buy the cereal with the cartoon animals on them. We cannot buy the cereal with the special prize inside.
It is almost Thanksgiving. My mom fills the basket of the shopping cart with food that she can stretch to last us the month. She finds a white frozen turkey the size of a basketball and the generic version of Stovetop stuffing. This, plus vegetables and pies will equal Thanksgiving dinner.
There are two big apple trees that grow in our backyard. My dad picks the apples and makes the absolute best apple pies you ever have or ever will taste in your entire life. It's one of the only things he ever cooks, and it's usually just for holidays like this.
My mom goes up to a cash register with her turkey and generic stuffing and lots of canned and dehydrated food and starts putting things on the conveyor belt. The groceries are loaded into paper bags and my mom opens her purse and pulled out the food stamps. The cashier looks at the food stamps and then looks at my mom. She tells my mom that we should not be buying a turkey with HER tax dollars -- turkeys are expensive and we should be buying "poor food". This is said in front of me and my 6-year-old sister. My mom's face turns so red it is almost purple, from the tips of her ears to the base of her neck.
She puts the food stamps back into her purse and through her clamped jaw tells the cashier to keep it all. Later, at home, she calls the store manager and had a heated conversation. I eavesdrop and begin to piece together what food stamps mean, and why my parents have been so worried even though they do their best to hide it from us. They sacrifice a lot to give us school clothes and supplies, and birthday presents, and Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas.
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2007 Our washing machine made a horrible noise and stopped working. A tire blew out on a twisty, winding, hilly road on my way to work and my car needed over $1000 in repairs. My wife was driving from Atlanta to Louisville a couple weeks ago and broke down halfway home and had to get towed the rest of the way. The price of food and the price of gas seem to rise to absorb any other money we make. We both work full time; I am also in school full time. We have children. A few incidents of bad luck and a declining economy; things have gotten harder lately.
My wife has been stressed out this year, worrying about bills and worrying about Christmas. By conserving money and searching for bargains and buying in bulk, we will still have an okay Christmas this year. Better than a lot of people. I'm not complaining.
But I'm not as good as my dad. Even during the worst, most hopeless of times, he made it seem as though he was fully in control and everything was going to be fine. I'm not as good at that.
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2:05 PM I read this comment
That look. (30+ / 0-)
I've heard John Edwards talk about this before, that look on your fathers face when he realizes there isn't enough money. The guilt, the pain.
AND, not having done anything wrong, having worked hard, tried to get ahead, just to be left behind.
Support the Troops. End the War.
by chuckles1 on Fri Dec 14, 2007 at 01:10:37 PM EST
I know that look too. But I never knew what that look meant until I saw it on my own face.
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2:06 PM I decide to support John Edwards for the Democratic Primary.
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I have avoided picking one candidate up until now, for a number of reasons. Mainly, because I like all of our Democratic candidates (well, I guess I could do without Gravel). And I still like them all, and would still vote for any Democrat in the general who won the nomination. I have no desire to participate in the "I hate your candidate because..." diaries. I like them all.
But my primary vote goes to Edwards and his message of hope. I never wanted my children to have to see That Look. But now that they have, I want to work for an American future that means my children's children will never have to see That Look.
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