11/04/2025
I was thinking about how Dad went hungry as a kid and teen thru most of the Great Depression, having been born in January 1919. His family, too. And how he re-experienced that as a soldier in WWII Europe, and found many people food insecure or starving.
And about how Mom's family learned to make do during the Great Depression when her father, who owned a lumber yard with his brother, agreed to keep all workers on and everyone took pay cuts, but no one lost their job (or business). They ate more liver and less pork chops and fresh fruit. And how that went on for so many years.
Dad insisted that Mom keep a large canned goods pantry. They even built a special cupboard in the house they built before I was born. And when they sold it in late 2004, it was my job to get on the floor and pull everything out. Then sort it. Many items weren't yet dated. A family friend and I put the oldest and clearly expired cans with black rings on the bottom into garbage bags. I carried those heavy bags out to the city trash can.
When Dad found out that night what we'd been up to, he got into all of the garbage bags and pulled out anything he thought might still be edible (no bulging or black rings). It was like a defense mechanism against being hungry so long ago. He never forgot. That shelf was his security blanket. Mom knew it, and she went along with restocking it every time it looked low.
