Hunger

I wonder how Americans will handle hunger. I don’t think most of us ever really had to deal with it. In the spring of 1983 (during the last nasty recession, but nothing like this one) I can remember lying in my bed in a cheap ass flop house hotel in Santa Barbara, California on a Wednesday trying to decide whether to spend my last seventy five cents till payday on Friday on a can of beans or bus fare. Eating the beans would mean a two hour walk to work, which was what I chose, but overall what I remember is the overwhelming helplessness of having a Bachelors degree from a great school and making three bucks an hour moving furniture and being so damn hungry.

Even better, I got fired from that job for having an attitude. As I recall, the supervisor had me stacking chairs in what I thought was a dumb place, and I suggested a different area. I was told to shut up and follow orders. Later, he realized he’d made a mistake, and asked me what the hell I’d been thinking. I told him at three bucks an hour, he couldn’t afford my brains, and that was it. I got canned.

In Santa Barbara, there were plenty of avocado and orange trees, so you could at least put some food in your mouth in the worst circumstances, but still it’s a really bad place to be when you don’t have enough to eat. I fear we’re entering an era where a lot of Americans are going to get their first taste (pardon the irony) of hunger. There’s really no reason to think it will be pretty.

Not sure what the way to deal with it should be. I suppose since most churches have kitchen facilities that they’ll be a likely candidate for feeding the community. They had soup kitchens in the 30’s in a lot of places, which makes sense since you can make soup out of anything and everything. Hell, I can cook. Maybe that will be my new profession: soup kitchen chef.

In a place like small town Maine it’s not hard to imagine how to put together a program like this. The Rotary, the churches, the town and the Chamber of Commerce could likely all be counted on to provide the basics to feed people a few times a day. The trick would be to stay humble and respectful of those down on their luck, and by God the people of Lincoln county Maine are certainly up to the task.

I wonder how the rest of the nation will fare?