Treasure Chest of Thoughts

Yesterday (during day two of Spring Break), I spent some time with a former neighbor canning a recipe passed down from some of her family, a recipe symbolic of the survival of the fittest during the Great Depression.

While creating great aromas, she shared with me her concerns for our future and her fears that her grandchildren and great-children will not know how to care for themselves for so much of the “old” ways are nearly non-existent.

She shared also how during the Great Depression they were given stamps for one pair of shoes per year, stamps for gas, for sugar, for meat.  I hardly knew how to respond, for my mind was a tumble with the abundance with which I am now blessed…as I mentally viewed my shelves holding just the basics.  Imagining only one pair of shoes.  Someone, writing this post, is totally spoiled!

Then she proudly told me about the education she obtained despite these obstacles.  “I walked to school three and a half miles one way…seven miles a day…to obtain a tenth grade education.”  I just wish you could have heard her say those words, for they were definitely filled with pride, and I was even more proud to know her.

Then she spent thirty years working in a shoe factory, raising a family, and caring for those around her…like myself when I became her neighbor about fifteen years ago.

I just could not help but think of myself, of my peers, and of my students today and wonder what percentage of them would even be capable of such resiliency.

I just finished writing a book review of Night on my book review blog and wondered with author Elie Weisel “…I could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the world would never tolerate such crimes…”  How did such atrocities occur…and are still occurring (for instance, the horrific abuse of women in Africa).

Did we not learn from the Great Depression?  I fear we did not.

While I have the opportunity, I am going to wrack this survivor-of-the-Depression’s brain! She is going to teach me how to use a pressure-cooker this summer and can all these vegetables my husband and I are growing (shhhh…I have a secret fear of pressure-cookers…of the pressure part, you know?)

In her words, “I need to share this with someone, need to pass it along.”  Glad I am the chosen one!  Glad I am also the one who now also gets to enjoy that canned tomatoe ketchup…made 12 pints during that conversation with my friend and mentor.  Yum yum!