I'm sure everyone has had something to say about having our first black President, the economy that has tanked, loosing jobs, homes, health care and there doesn't seem to be a bottom. There is a bottom, I promise you there is. I remember when I was much younger and we had to wait in line for gas with a ration card. I remember, before I had siblings, my parents having friends over to eat crepes and potato salad, going to eat lunch and dinner at the mess hall, because my dad was just a two striper back then, and there really wasn't enough money make it to the end of the month. That's true today for a lot of service men and women. There was a time when my dad had fallen so deep into alcoholism that his paycheck went to pay his bar tab instead of coming home so that we could buy groceries for the commissary. My mom had to make an emergency call to my grandmother, states side, to money gram us enough to get by for two weeks. That gave her time to commandeer my dad's next check, stop by the my dad's favorite watering holes and enforce a new law that would encourage them to turn him away. We lived in Germany at the time and my mom, with her 12th grade education had a masters in Negotiations In a Foreign Country 101 down to an art form. She also pioneered the GPS system long before they had a name for it. That's how she found all of my dads watering holes. She also had a nack for getting a job without a college degree. Do you know I was in my forties when it finally dawned on me that my parents have held jobs in the medical field, and public works without a college education!
When I graduated, they gave me a choice: go to community college and they would pay for books and tuition as much as they could until I got a degree. I was limited to four years. Or, I could get a job and pay a few household bills and save up to move into my own place. They never forced me to go to college, but they constantly reminded me to make a choice before graduation, because I couldn't just live at home for free.
So where does this leave me at today? I remember how we survived hard times when I was growing up. We ate food, not a huge meal, but we had food in our stomach. Toast with cream of mushroom soup. The Army calls it SOS. Blank-on-a-shingle. A lot of recipes from other cultures that also had little food but shared tricks of the homeless trade in how to quite and empty stomach. Someone brought potatoes, someone else the onions and vinegar, flour and egg for crepes. We ate good! We talked, we laughed and we looked out for each other. We walked everywhere and made it fun so that we didn't notice we were walking five miles a day to and from work, grocery shopping, school, doctors etc. In December I thought I would loose my home, I used very little heat, I made meals stretch so far I wasn't sure if I ate one or two meals that day. I had enough leave that if I ran out of gas I could call in and take the day off, because there was no money to buy gas at 3.45/gal., or pay bills on time. My credit probably sucks right now, but here is what I know...I survived! I wanted to see who was going to be elected in January and I knew it was a Democrat. I also opened my hands and let go of what ever I was hanging on to so tightly that it was causing me stress and illness. I asked Mother God to send me what I needed and asked Father God to remind me I chose this path and that I can't take material things with me anyway. I rescued a dog that might of wound up at the city pound. I took care of three animals and my son continued to go to college. We made it. By the end of spring or late summer, I think we will begin to relax even more and breath a little better. I'm trying to start a business of my own, and for a short time my day job may still be there, but even that is not promised. May will be a telling month for me. What ever these times bring, I know how to survive them because I survived all the other hard times in my life. And so will we all!
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