Life is interesting at time when you hang out with Granny, Hermiony Vidalia Criony Fiddlestadt from Fuchsia, Minnesota.
I was talking to her today. We were talking about her crime solving abilities. This is the advice she gave me. “If you don’t know something, pretend you know something. The person you’re talking to won’t know that you don’t know what they don’t know. Because they think you know what they don’t know they won’t know that you don’t know. It works every time.”
Should I take granny’s advice? It left me a little confused. I don’t know if she knows what I don’t know or do I know what she knows that she doesn’t know? I need some coffee to figure out what I just said. It is hazardous being around Granny.
Are you hungry? What do you do when you are hungry? Do you go to the fridge and grab a snack? Do you trek to the grocery store to pick up some groceries? If we can do that, we are very blessed.
Today I am writing about hunger in America. We live in a rural area and because we do not see homeless people on the streets we tend to think poverty does not exist in our area. Of course, we know about the food shelves and the backpack programs in our schools. We know about the homeless shelters in the bigger cities. We donate to the bell-ringers each Christmas season.
Recently the Wells Area Food Shelf Volunteers and area coordinators were invited to a movie called “A Place At The Table.” It states that 50 million Americans, 1 in 4 children, don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
This movie reinforced some of the things we already know and opened our eyes to a new way of thinking about the people who are in need of our resources. It may surprise you to know that a large number of those who use the resources available from the food shelves, the backpack program and the free meals are two-parent households working 40 or more hours a week. They are called the working poor because they work for minimum wage.
Minimum wage in Minnesota is $7.25 per hour. If you are concerned, do the math. Figure out how to live as a family of four on minimum wage. Calculate your utilities, your insurance, transportation and most of all food. Look at your own budget and then figure out if you could live on minimum wage.
As of this writing five legislators from Minnesota are taking the minimum wage challenge. I only wish more legislators were doing this and that those taking the challenge were from both parties. Maybe we all should take the challenge and walk in the shoes of those that make low wages and work for a living.
Recently I was involved in a conversation with someone whose opinion differed from mine. I welcomed that. Something is always learned from someone that thinks differently from you. The conversation revolved around those who get low pay and do some of our most valuable jobs. I can’t disagree with part of the conversation, and that is, if you get an education you should have a higher-paying job.
What I did not say was that when you do get that education you need good jobs to pay for the debt you incur getting that education.
That said, there are educated people who need help for a short period of time, too. Finding a job in corporate America has become complicated and isn’t as easy as it once was.
There are people living in shelters who have jobs but can’t afford a place to live. If you happen to be homeless and, yes, there are homeless families in our area, where do you find the clothes to be presentable at a job interview? Where do you take a shower? How do you get to the interview? Can you afford a cellphone so employers can call you? And how do you find the resources to help you through this?
Let’s examine these lower-paying jobs. In our conversations respect isn’t always connected to lower-paying jobs. Some of the top lower-paying jobs in America, according to US News, are: fast food cooks and servers, farm workers and laborers, cashiers, personal care attendants and home care aides, nannies, child care workers, housekeeping and cleaners. They are service workers who take care of us and the needs of those we love.
What would happen if all these jobs and people disappeared? We wouldn’t have anyone to care of the elderly or disabled. We wouldn’t be able to eat at our favorite fast food restaurant. There would no clerks at the grocery stores or anyone to serve us coffee or clean our homes or our hotel rooms. What about all that food we love to put on our table? Those workers that get the food to us by working in the fields and factories would no longer be here. What would happen if you took this low-wage working class segment away from America? Yet we do not want to help them survive.
Obesity is a problem in America. According to the movie and other statistics, part of the problem of obesity is because healthy and nutritious food is unaffordable for those on a low-income budget. Processed foods high in sugar, salt and high in saturated fats are cheap. Take a look at the grocery flier the next time it arrives in your paper and mailbox and see how cheap this food is. It is the food that those on a fixed income can afford to buy. Could your grocery budget withstand minimum wage?
It also might surprise you to know there are many families that do not have beds and stoves or furniture in their homes. They will never tell you. They are too proud.
It might surprise you to know there are families, single adults, senior citizens who are hungry and do not use the food shelf. They do not apply for fuel assistance. They do not apply for food stamps. They do not go to free meals. I can only guess at the reason. Could it be that they have pride and have heard the comments occasionally made by those who don’t understand the hunger and poverty that America is facing today?
These proud people have seen the looks at the grocery store that people have given to those who use government resources. They have heard the comments about those that freeload with government resources and they don’t want to be that person. They have stood in line at well-meaning free meals sponsored by organizations wanting to help. The donation basket for offering is by the food plate that is that given to them. The person ahead of them put in a $20 bill and they know they can’t do that. The person serving the food was watching. It is too hard to swallow their pride so they don’t go. It is hard to ask for help because it is something they have never had to do before.
We can keep telling ourselves that those who need help, need to help themselves. We can keep telling ourselves that it is not our problem. We need to take care of ourselves. To steal a quote from Dr. Phil, “How is that working for you?”
We have more people needing the food shelf every day. More and more that number is the working poor. The number of homeless families and hungry children are increasing each month. Older Americans who worked hard all their lives are struggling.
Until we quit blaming, until we change our hard-headed attitude about who deserves what, we will never solve the problem. There are solutions in open minds and differing opinions working together to find a common ground.
Hunger in America touches each one of us. It is the silent virus eroding our way of life that is known as the American dream.
Please take the time to watch “A Place at the Table.” It is available on online. It is also available in book form. It may change your life and the lives of others.
Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf printed in the Albert Lea Tribune February 3.
The United States Postal Service is raising its rates. It is partly my fault. The reason I partially blame myself is that I am memory-challenged when remembering to send people cards for birthdays, Christmases, baby births and times of illness, sympathy and friendship.
I like to get the cards. I keep the people in my prayers and always have good intentions but never seem to get it done.
This is not something new that has developed since I have become an adult. When I was in grade school and high school, I would write letters to my aunts and uncles and cousin but they would never get mailed. When they came to visit and occasionally their visits were yearly, I would hand deliver the letters to them.
This is my greeting card showing greeting cards.
There is one problem, and that is the fact that I love to buy greeting cards, and I love to make greeting cards. I must have a problem with that in many areas of my life since I love cookbooks and recipes but don’t like to cook. Maybe it is the author in me that likes to see things in print.
Since I am changing careers I need to readjust and change out my office so I can work more efficiently with my new writing career. It is amazing the joy it creates when you find an object that you have been looking for. In the midst of the mess I found so many greeting cards. As I looked and sorted the beautiful cards in to categories I wondered how in the world I ever accumulated so many cards. Then I felt a little sad that I never sent the cards to the people they were meant for.
Some of the cards that I found were perfect for someone in their young adult years, but the person that I had in mind when I bought the card is no longer a young adult, in fact they might be called a senior citizen now.
In my meandering of thoughts it crossed my mind that greeting cards are probably obsolete too or they will be soon. I hope not. History is represented in greeting cards. I have the Valentine cards that my mom got when she was young. I have the Valentines that my parents gave me when I was young, and when I read them it brings tears and good memories to my heart.
I am de-cluttering, but there are some things that are keepers in my heart, and those are the Valentines of my youth. The birthday cards from certain people from my youth that I still have. It is the Christmas cards, not all but some, that I have kept over the years from people that I miss because they are living with God now. Those cards give me comfort, make me smile, occasionally make me cry and bring back memories.
My mother never threw anything out, and I was very vocal in letting my opinion be known. There are items that did not need to be kept, and I would still be vocal about them if she were here. She was a child of the Great Depression, and that made her at times hoard things.
When it was time for me to go through her things I found the treasure of her youth. I found a scrapbook she had made of old Valentines. I found cards and letters of sympathy from my dad’s funeral. I hadn’t paid much attention then to all the cards and letters of caring he received when he was sick and when he died. Reading them twenty years later as an adult made me appreciate the impact he had on people’s lives. I would have never had known that.
As I look at the cards, the many, many cards, I have in my stash to send to people I made a decision. This year I will try over the year to mail every single card that I have to someone. As crazy as it may seem, I might send a Christmas card in July. I am not going to pay attention to season but I will pay attention to the get-well and sympathy cards and make sure they go to the right place at the right time. Sending a sympathy card could get a little tricky if the person were still alive, though many years ago when my uncle’s favorite team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, lost the World Series, I felt it did warrant a sympathy card. I was sure my uncle mourned for the next year about that.
Will I live up to my new resolution? It’s not a New Year’s one. Join me in sending cards to friends, family and strangers this year. It may change their day, it may make them smile and … it might keep the Postal Service in business. Challenge your friends. Let’s start a card revolution in 2014.
I have started a page on Facebook called “Revive the Greeting Card.” Hopefully it will help me in my resolve to send out greeting cards. Hopefully the members of the group will keep me on task.
If you are a Facebook person look for the page “Revive the Greeting Card “and join us. Take the time this year to send some greetings to someone, it may change their day.
Life is interesting at time when you hang out with Granny, Hermiony Vidalia Criony Fiddlestadt from Fuchsia, Minnesota.
Sprinkled Notes 