Friday, December 18, 2009

Food Pantry Donations







I have never been hungry, except for the hunger pangs that mean I haven’t eaten for four hours. That is not what hungry means and being very fortunate I can’t describe it, but I can imagine.

When I was about twenty two, I was close to being hungry. I was divorced, living in a forty dollar a month dump and generally hungry. I lived in an apartment house with a lot of other single people that were working, but made just enough to cover expenses. Expenses were rent. Rent included utilities. We had to walk to work, so therefore more shoes than normal people would have to buy. That left little for food. I was very lucky that I could afford to buy chicken wings and knew how to make soup and noodles out of them.

One day one of the girls knocked on my door and asked me what I was cooking. I told her and asked her if she was hungry. I watched her eat and let her eat as much as she needed. A little thought went through my mind that my fridge would not have left over chicken noodle soup in it that night.

I worked for the Blind Industries on a commission for what I sold over the telephone. When I was hungry when I could afford it I went downstairs to a Chinese restaurant to eat chicken fried rice. They served a whole big basket of saltine crackers with a big cereal bowl of rice. This wonderful meal cost thirty five cents.

I met a wonderful man at that restaurant and he started buying me my rice. I couldn’t let my need for food start a relationship, so I called my mom and dad and had them come to get me. I then transferred with the same company far away.

The man that bought me rice wrote and wrote and I finally came back to the “rice” city and we got married and started a family.

Today my husband and I filled a food pantry basket full of oranges and apples and I thought of those days when an older man stood and watched us fill the basket. In his hand he had just a very small sack of food. I just wonder….

No comments:

Post a Comment