Very strange world today, where if someone wants something that other people have, they seem to think that the government or their friends and neighbors owe it to them to provide it. Ran into a couple items on Twitter and weblogs today that caused me to just shake my head in amazement.
I come from a background of do-it-yourselfers or do-without. I remember a few years back when my sister gave my dad a book of paid-for gift coupons for Stop & Shop, where my dad always went to do grocery shopping. He wouldn’t use them and I bought the $35.00 book from him when I realized what stopped him: he was worried that someone would see him using them and think they were food stamps.
My folks went through some hard times and I remember an 8-oz tin of corned beef being used to feed a family of five. The three of us girls shared a single banana. Yes, we had Madame Alexander dolls for Christmas, but my mother somehow managed to buy just the dolls and make their outfits herself. I recall my own short period of unemployment–a few months when I was 28 after working since I was 16–when I fed sandwich steaks to my cat because I couldn’t afford cat food but found these in my freezer.
It’s a different world and a different mentality, and I’m not so sure all the changes are good.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology