I went to the grocery store this morning for the first time in two months.  My friends keep me stocked when they go, I don’t need much.  I was amazed at the prices.  I kept hearing about it on the news, but it’s different when you walk down the aisles of the store.

I don’t know how truly poor people are buying food, paying for rent, utilities, car, gas, clothing for their children or anything else.  It’s no wonder people can’t afford to go to work, pay child care, and repairs on anything--car, or their appliances.   It makes me sad.  This is different than when I was growing up.  We were poor if measured by today’s terms, but everyone had hope.  There seems to be a growing hopelessness now.

While buying groceries, I realized what a little part of my income I spend on the food necessities--as a percentage of what I spend.  Mostly I spend on house and personal upkeep.  Lawn, house, car, cleaning essentials--we used old rags, etc.  We didn’t ever think of our how our lawns looked back then.  And the mowers were the push kind.  

There was an entire meat section of horse meat...which grocers said was to feed people’s dogs.  But my mom told me that some people were so poor they ate horse meat.  But there was hope.  We have got to get hope back for those who have lost it.  Let’s figure this out together.