Lessons In Food And Life: ’We Knew How To Be Poor’ (November 10, 2011)
“I thought about being poor. I thought about what it means, and how many of us are feeling just like that these days. I thought about the skills required to do it well – to be poor with dignity, poor with meals on the table, poor with enough to pay for the rent. These are real concerns for so many, and my own attention goes there on a daily basis. Marilyn thinks about it too, because she’s afraid folks aren’t prepared. ‘I don’t know what folks are going to do,’ she said ‘because they don’t know how to be poor.’ She went on to tell me stories of the local food pantry set up to help those in need. Evidently people came for everything but that bag of potatoes or big hefty winter squash. They left good food, she said; they wanted things in cans or mixes. One woman wanted instant pudding, but would not take the stuff in the box that you had to mix with milk and cook. That was too much work; she wanted the stuff in cups that was already made. Marilyn just shook her head. She was worried. Really worried. I thought about it, too. What are we going to do?”
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