In the First Person

Someone would have to be extremely cold-hearted not to be moved by some of the reports that have been appearing lately, describing the difficulties people are facing as they try to cope with the downturn in housing and the economy and the surge in food and gasoline prices.

Personally, I find the first-person accounts to be the most heart-rending, because anyone with any pride at all knows how hard it is for people to open up and admit to the sorts of things that can easily come across as human failings -- even when they are not.

I suppose that is one reason why I found the following essay by Heather Ryan, "Our Cupboard Was Bare," which is featured in a new Salon series about life during a recession, "Pinched: Tales from an Economic Downturn," to be so compelling.

I had a master's degree. I had a job. But to feed my three children, I had to swallow my pride and go to a soup kitchen.

We only had to do it once last summer. Only once because when friends got wind of what was happening, they sent gift cards to Albertsons and Safeway, money even. I'm a writer, so I'm supposed to know how to say difficult things, how to blend the mundane with the significant, how to tell a story, how to make the sad at least bearable. I started e-mails in which I blathered on about my love for Mary Jane shoes, or my obsession with Neko Case, hoping to find a moment where I could say, "By the way. Last week? I took the kids to a soup kitchen." I wrote e-mails about Cuba and the welfare system and the crumbling middle class, yet none of them landed in an in box with the admission that I had taken my kids one Tuesday in July, drove downtown and walked into a soup kitchen to eat dinner -- parking far enough away so that no one would see we actually had a car.

A man with scarred skin was at the door. He wore a tiny gold hoop in his ear and as he talked to the older gentleman in front of us, he tugged the earring in a circle. When we were next, he smiled at the kids and asked their names. Chloe, the eldest at 9, mumbled hers, but Ivan and Giselle answered happily. At 7 and 5, they thought we were at some kind of special restaurant. I had told them we were going to a place called the Dining Room, and had said it was a "soup kitchen." I had even explained that we needed to go because we didn't have enough food to make it through the month. Only Chloe, though, knew what that meant.

The man pointed to the short line by the kitchen where workers in hairnets were dishing up food. He mentioned that he had some paperwork that I could complete later. He said "could," not "need to" or "will." It was a distinction I noticed.

The Dining Room in Eugene, Ore., used to be a restaurant, and it still looked the part: all green Naugahyde bench seats and scratched-laminate tables and a yellowed lamp hanging over each booth. It reminded me of the mom-and-pop place my dad used to take my brothers and me for root beer floats sometimes, except there was no jukebox, and the carpet was worn through in a few places. Tuesdays are family and senior night, which means you can eat there if you are under 18, have kids under 18 or are over 55.

Even still, Chloe, Ivan and Giselle were the only children there. Half the booths were taken, most of them with older people in clean and pressed clothes: nice slacks, plaid shirts. They looked like the kind of people you'd expect to see in Florida, or on a golf course. Later, after I sat down, I would notice the carefully sewn cuffs and hems, the knees of slacks worn shiny and thin. From far away, they all looked like people you'd see in a retirement center crocheting or playing shuffleboard.

It had been a hard decision for me to go in the first place. We had a house full of food, mostly from the food bank, and some staples friends who were moving had given us. I was employed as a secretary for the county, a job that didn't make use of my graduate degree or my intelligence but had let me keep the kids in the same school and city after my divorce. I made a decent wage. I had health insurance and dental insurance. On my desk was a packet of new retirement and savings options. But summer child care was $1,800 a month for my three kids, and the child support I received from their father was a paltry sum mandated by the state. It didn't even begin to cover the cost of one kid's child care for a single summer month. We didn't qualify for WIC vouchers or food stamps. The previous week, I had swallowed my pride and driven my old Subaru to a local food bank. The women there were kind and gave me a box filled with cans of tuna and bags of pasta. I was only allowed to get one box per month, though, and what they gave me would last a week, maybe 10 days. I was looking into weeks of hunger. The Dining Room served dinner to families only twice a week.

When I did the math, when I balanced all of my knowledge of the system and its ins and outs, I knew we had to go there and eat. Otherwise, we'd end up with a sack of soft potatoes in the final week before the next food box became available. It was the most responsible decision I could have made under the circumstances.

Even now, a year later, I'm still struggling to believe that last sentence.

I'm always surprised at the amount of knowledge and cleverness successful navigation of the system takes -- what places serve dinner at what time, where to get food, what the rules are: It's all stuff you need to know, and without the Internet, it would have been about 10 times more difficult to figure it all out. I graduated summa cum laude from my undergraduate program, earned a spot in a top graduate writing program, where I earned a 4.05. Despite this, calculating these particulars was hard for me. That cannot be a resounding accolade for the system itself.

So there we were, in line, Chloe standing apart from us, arms folded. Giselle and Ivan, however, talked to everyone, asked questions about what we would eat, where we would sit. When we got to the front, we each took a cafeteria tray. Chloe went first, and when a woman asked her if she wanted salad, she glared at me before answering. We all moved down the line, choosing from the selections: fresh fruit, salad, turkey casserole, fried fish, rice, beans, salsa, bread. One of the workers saw the kids come through and went into the kitchen. A moment later, she emerged with a jug of chocolate milk and set it on the counter. Women and men smiled at us, asked us "How much?" and said "Tell me when," then pointed us toward the tables. Along another counter, there was coffee and tea and juice, desserts even, day-old things from bakeries in town, each of them laid carefully on paper plates. Near one door was a pile of day-old loaves of bread and a heap of men's clothes -- all flannels and thermals. People took what they needed from each as they came and went. When we left, the bread and clothes would be gone.

We sat at a booth, and a teenager in an apron brought us silverware wrapped in napkins. The guy with the earring brought the paperwork, and handed it to me as the kids began to eat. It asked for family information: ages of children, number of adults, total income. I cringed when I wrote in my gross salary, but when I gave the form back, the guy just nodded. He looked about to say something, but didn't, so I asked him if I made too much.

He shook his head. "We don't take the information for that," he said. "But you'd be surprised about the people who come in here. Lots of them are like you."

The food was decent, a bit better than run-of-the-mill cafeteria food, and healthier. I could tell that whoever made the food had thought about it carefully, had tried to make it nutritious, hearty. One man, one of the few who looked truly homeless, came through the line, then sat in a corner. His tray was piled with food, enough for three meals. He ate methodically, slowly. He finished it all before we left.

Other people filtered in, and a few had children. I watched these children. At first I thought they were angry and sullen, like Chloe was. But they stood quietly next to their mothers, and they were polite and kind, much unlike Chloe, who was flicking bits of stringy turkey at her siblings. It wasn't until Ivan and Giselle saw the other kids and got up to talk to them, and I saw those kids flinch, that it began to make sense. Ivan and Giselle were acting like being here was no big deal because they hadn't grown up with this, and they hadn't a clue what it meant to be at a soup kitchen. They didn't feel ashamed of anything. So they asked questions of everyone, wondered aloud about how the serving dishes kept the food warm, and why there were single desserts instead of the served kind, and where the bathroom was. Even Chloe's sullenness was better than what I saw in those other kids, which was an acceptance of the situation and all it implied, all we load it with, all I loaded it with, despite my liberal proclamations, my lovely words and rhetoric argued in college classrooms, where I could turn a pretty phrase and win an argument about classism or poverty. I had grown up "poor," whatever that means, and hungry sometimes, too. But I had never been to a soup kitchen, didn't have a clue what it looked like, what it felt like, and I'm sorry now that I had pretended to know and that I had made use of something I had no right to use.

I could segue into some political rant here, a slick dismissal of the Bush administration, perhaps, or a paragraph declaring my support for Barack Obama. But the moment I walked into the soup kitchen -- the moment I acknowledged, publicly, that I could not provide food for myself or my children (which is why the soup kitchen is so much more difficult than the food bank) -- is the moment that my ability to believe in the politics of this country was forever altered. I know why poor people have historically low voter-turnout rates. If you vote, you acknowledge that you believe in the system. And to believe in the system when you're at the very bottom, when you've watched the chrome and ink-black SUVs drive by while you're packing your own beater with dried beans and lentils, to believe at that point is fucking painful. You either say the system works and you've earned your place, or you concede that there is something wrong and there might not be any way to fix it. The entire summer of 2007, as I struggled to keep us fed, I hated thinking of politics, an unusual characteristic for me. It hurt to listen to any presidential candidate talk about the working poor, and not because they weren't genuine, but because all their talk was just that -- talk. It was like listening to my former self, the one who didn't know how bad things could get.

A few months out of the crisis, and with a little money in my pocket, I bought a $3 wedge of brie. This is laughable, I know. I'm a goddamn parody of myself, with all my bougie aspirations and affectations. But when I unwrapped the cheese at home, I remembered suddenly the soup kitchen: the thick smell of beans and onions, the hard light coming through the naked windows, Ivan taking a bite of day-old Danish and spitting it out because he was used to better. I had to fight the urge to return the brie. It felt wasteful and indulgent. When I did eat it, I thought about all the things food means to us, all the things it stands in for. We may joke about brie, or expensive wine, or organic tomatoes, but food reminds us of who we are, who we're supposed to be. Brie says, I'm not poor and I'm well educated and I'm responsible, a good mother. I will never be hungry. We try to believe all these things don't matter, but it's like closing your eyes and believing no one can see you.

Comments

[roger]

I don't think I'm cold hearted but for the the record i never have voted for a republican (voting since 1950)because its the party of money and self promotion, free market, the sky is the limit and all the other BS. anybody with with a social conscience is a socialist fool etc....etc..well you get the government you deserve its pay back time! PS the democrats are only the lesser of 2 evils.

[Steven]

My Faith (capital F intended) sustains me, and it saddens me to realize that so many people have no Faith in God. Here's why.

1. Without Faith, all one has is pride. It is obvious from this column that it is this woman's pride that is hurting the most. With Faith, one realizes that he or she is not entitled to anything and that everything, our food, our homes, our children...are gifts from God. We are entitled to nothing.

2. Without Faith it is easy to blame others. This woman blames Bush. It is the old literary device that Shakespeare used in Julius Caesar when Mark Antony "praises Brutus." She lays the blame for her problems at Bush's feet, refusing to acknowledge her own complicity in them, from her marriage to the wrong man to the decisions that led to economic ruin. With Faith, one accepts that which one is dealt. After all, the man I have Faith in suffered a horrible death for crimes He didn't commit. He suffered a horrible death for crimes I and all sinners committed. With Faith, one realizes that everything is a blessing, and that we are entitled to nothing.

I sincerely hope this woman gets on her feet. She says she understands why the poor don't believe in "the system." I hope that somehow she will find the system I have found, the system that makes perfect sense. That system is Faith in the Almighty. With Him, there is no problem I can't handle. Without Him, nothing fits....nothing works out.

[Richard]

This is one of the primary reasons to invest in food storage -- having a few months to a few years worth of food stored gives you a buffer to rely on during tough time.

It is also worth noting that the system is broken and that having a good graduate degree no longer is enough - particularly for younger (e.g. anyone born after 1965) adults who also have oppressive student loans and high costs of living (mortgage on underwater properties; high property taxes; long commutes to jobs).

[Todd]

I am glad for Steven that faith gives him strength. But this idea that "so many people" don't share is faith is quite a misconception.

According to Cambridge University polling in 2005, When Americans were asked “do you believe in god”, more than 90% of people say “yes”. Numbers which are fairly consistent with other studies done over the last couple of decades. Just 8 other countries show 90%+ belief in a deity: Mongolia, Portugal, Albania, Argentina, Kyrgyzstan, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Croatia. The United States, by quite a large margin, is the most religious of the modern industrialized nations.

On the other end of the spectrum, countries where less than 30% of people reported they “believe in god” were: Denmark, Norway, Japan, the Czech Republic, Finland and Sweden with the lowest rate of belief at less than 15%.

However, quite opposite to what even our "guts" have been trained to assume here in America - there is a inverse relationship between rates of national religious adherence and crime. That is, crime rates on average are higher with higher rates of belief in god.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, abortion, substance abuse and more in the prosperous democracies.”

Overall there is a inverse relationship between rates of religious adherence in nations, and crime.

Now such data certainly does not prove that religion is the cause of all these negatives in a populations behavior, nor that the lack of it is the cause of all the positive behaviors. However, it does at the very least prove that when it comes to national averages – more religion doesn't help, nor does having less religion hurt!

Now, I'm sure Steven that you will use the classic excuses for this: those 90% of folks in America who believe in god don't believe in god the "right way"? Or they don't have ENOUGH faith, or something else such?

Anyways, my fundamental problem with all this is that with 35,000+ children DYING of starvation on this planet every single DAY (thousands of others from war, abuse and disease). Do you think a deity is going to answer YOUR prayers? Not the kids cries and pleas, but yours?

BeLIEve whatever you want. But I really think that the belief in the afterlife is the core of much suffering on this planet. It takes the focus off of making THIS place the most healthy, happy and loving place possible. When you take your eyes off this incredible planet, and cast them above --- you don't watch so carefully where you are stepping anymore!

And, I find that being honest, giving to others, and being loving simply *feels* good! Its rewarding and when you treat others well, they tend to treat you well. Therefore, if in spite of being an honest and loving father & always thinking of others first - a god were to then punish me after I die because I didn't properly flatter and praise him?! If thats the god you believe in, I believe you worship an evil idol.

[Rocky]

Four years ago, we were a society that seemed more concerned about stamping out gay marriage than about helping real families. Stamping out gay marriage was certainly a successful hot button issue for Bush. I wonder how many of these Republican voters now find themselves lining up at soup kitchens in red states across the country? But as a prior poster noted, the Democrats are only the lesser of two evils. The $7.8 million raised by Obama at a recent San Francisco fund raiser (which I mentioned yesterday) would be enough to pay for over 1 million meals at local soup kitchens. The $14,000 (each) paid by fat cat Democrats would be enough to pay for over 2,000 meals for the poor. I am still waiting to hear how Obama plans on stabilizing Medicare funding in the next few years.

[Susan]

Harsh fact is: America is done as an Empire. And that's ok! There are many nations on the planet with happier, healthier, longer-lived people who don't live in an empire. Its not the end of the world . . . unless perhaps Americans throw a temper tantrum as we have to cut down on our car size, McHouse size, and ass size! If we don't gracefully adapt, and act like spoiled whiners. Then the world could be in a lot of trouble!

[Tax Lawyer]

Did anyone notice that those countries that had the lowest level of belief in god all have quality of life and happiness standards higher than the American median? Not to mention that those countries have a much better, more compassionate society where the middle class has not disappeared as has happened in America. Wage growth, GDP growth in all of those countries exceed America when measured on a per capita basis.

And do not respond to this post for me to go move to those countries. I would gladly do so if it were possible to emigrate to there, but, sadly to say, they won't permit Americans to move there unless they meet a wealth test, that is hopelessly unattainable for me, a tax lawyer and CPA.

also the countries

[roger]

No child is born a believer,children are programed/brain washed into believing.
for a muslim all others are infidels for a jew they are the chosen ones for a christian if you don't believe your going to hell (the scare tactic) some people are even willing to blow themselves up in the name of god.enough said!

[CivilSoccerCoach]

Another person blaming everybody but themselves.

Steven is accurate in his comments. This woman should of stayed married. Statistics show that divorce is one of the biggest contributors to financial problems and this woman's plight.

She and some of the commentors somehow want to blame the government or Bush for their failings. Todd; you sound like an complete idiot. The product of idiot hippie 60's parents. Your confusion is stunning.

[JL]

Wow...this is really deep. This crisis is different from several others we have gone through...it is multi-faceted. The triple threat of housing, credit, and inflation is completely destroying the economy. It is both asset and credit-based, unlike the Nasdaq meltdown, which was only asset-based. This will go on for a very long time and consumers right now must make appropriate plans to weather this.

[Todd]

CivilSoccerCoach . . . that was a very sharp and factually stunning reply to my points.

I'm not a hippie, nor the product of one studmuffin. But I'll bet you can't wait to start following Limbaugh's commands to slaughter them!

[Susan]

Come on now Todd, he isn't an UN-Civil Soccer Coach?! He is CIVIL! That was a polite, articulate and well thought out point by point rebuttal to what you said!

Praise McJesus!

[roger]

(Todd; you sound like an complete idiot. The product of idiot hippie 60's parents.) .NOW WHAT A WONDERFUL DISPLAY OF RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE AND BIGOTRY

[Lady From Middle America]

Just before I read this post, I saw part of one of those HGTV shows where the realtors tell everyone to spend at least $10,000 to update their kitchens. Heather Ryan's story sounds a lot more realistic than the HGTV shows.

[Bruce]

Folks, folks, this is *NOT* the place to have a religious discussion. I'm a believer myself(matter of act, I believe this current economic crisis is predicated in the Bible), but I'm NOT here to debate who's wrong or right. All I'm going to say is when I look at the sad state of our world today, there certainly does seem to be a lot of things going on at once. And I must respectfully disagree with you, Todd. I see many teens who are self-professed atheists causing much of the problems and grief in the town where I live. Their recent acts of vandalism where they spray-painted hate messages on a church and defecated all over the statues and lawn has the city in an uproar. I actually find it's disbelief and a lack of moral guidance and values that is the majority of our problems today. That and greed. I've seen too many things to merely dismiss evil as simply a concept in our minds...

[Todd]

Disagree all you want Bruce. The facts of religious adherence vs. violence/divorce rates and much more . . . are exactly that. Facts.

Though maybe those facts were planted by . . . (cue DEEP echo voice) "SATAN?!"

2/3rds of humanity are not even Christian Bruce. They all doomed? How loving of you!

History, she is a bitch: religions come and go, beer and wine remain!

[Susan]

What scares me is that folks like Bruce believes that if America collapses as an empire then it must be the end of the WOOOOORRRRRLLLLLD! So these psycho brains will be perfectly happy to kill, perhaps even use nukes, because after all. Jesus is coming back if America falls!

Huh, lets see (scratching head) how many previous mighty empires across the continents have thought the world was ending because *their* empire was collapsing? An empire ending can be a scary transition, but it doesn't mean everybody dies! The Soviet Citizens did mostly fine! Of course most of them already were into gardening, bartering and such and were far more self reliant that we spoiled superstitious fat-asses are! So if our social/government system runs into big problems, we might very well start slaughtering each other in the streets.

But the world will keep turning Bruce. The sun goes red giant in about 4 billion years, THEN everybody is in big trouble!

[Bruce]

Wow... What a well thought out, intelligent reponse... I'm not here to say if they are doomed or not. The question is cut and dry. Either you believe or you don't. The ones who don't will be eternally lost. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. Like it or lump it.

[Bruce]

And if you bloody well READ your Bible, you would know that these things are all foretold and are supposed to take place! Nontheless, I'm done with this thread. We're getting WAY off topic here, and this isn't the time or place for such nonsensical discussions. I have my opinions and views, and you have yours. I know what's coming, and that's all I'm going to say about this matter. Read James 5 and Rev 18(among others). This whole mess might start making sense to you.

Enough is enough. I will no longer post any replies on this matter or topic.

[Susan]

Dude, you worship darkness then. 2/3rds of humanity are not even faintly Christian. And I'll bet a huge chunk of those 1/3rd don't fit your belief in who your 'loving' pie in the sky will let into the Harem with the 17 virgins (sorry, I get my superstitions mixed up).

So the vast majority of humans are doomed. I don't believe the universe is as evil and sinister as you do then! But beLIEve whatever you want angry boy, however - PLEASE don't hurt/kill people if/when America starts going through another Great Depression scale event! DON'T HURT ANYBODY!

[Bruce]

Susan=Todd. 'nuff said.

[Susan]

And if you bloody well READ your Bible/Koran/Scrolls/Carvings (onto infinity), you would know that these things are all foretold and are supposed to take place!

I'm sorry your god didn't give you powerful enough intellect to see the absurdity of using a book to prove a book!

The same book is filled with horrific orders and contradictions anyways. You can interpret it many ways. You like those places that tell you to do stuff like kill a child who disobeys its parents? (You'll come the the Old/New Testament idiocy - quite debunked by the way.)

You'll hate this I, unlike most Christians in America have read more than one version of the Bible, and many other religious/superstitions books. YOU need to read some other books too! Why didn't that loving god of yours give you a functioning brain kiddo? Turn off the TV and pick up some books!

[Susan]

Wow, took you that long to figure it out? Actually it is the same typist (me) but idea are being spit out by my hubby (Todd) at me from his desk across from me. When its mostly his ideas, its gets his name, mostly mine - mine. But don't flatter yourself, each of these comments has taken 30 seconds of our mutual time as we bop around our office doing other work.

We have been laughing and enjoying! But seriously, our only wish is for folks like to not get violent when the *S* hits the fan in America!

"What would Jesus do?"

[Michael MacLeod]

All the personal attacks on Todd aside, this heartbreaking story is a tragically sharp example of how asleep the vast majority of Americans are about our future. There is a staggering number of people, living in their McMansions, who don't even realize, as Kunstler points out, that they are nothing but fake houses with fake shutters that don't close, porches no one sits on, and as I've lamented for years, stonework that's nothing but thin, artificial facade.

This seemingly innocent display is dangerous because so many of us have come to believe in the artifice, that it's real. That fantasy has carried over to our economic "house" as well, the derivatives and other wacky financial creations are taken by too many people as real stores of wealth. Like the stone artifice that people adorn the fake columns of their fake suburban estates, they're not real. But they ARE the load bearing instruments of this pseudo-red-hot economy we've enjoyed recently in all its plastic splendor.

When we wake from this American Dream, millions of Americans may find themselves suddenly in Heather Ryan's shoes, but the line outside "The Dining Room" will be hours and hours long, with no guarantee of a meal at the end of the wait.

I understand the anger directed against conservatives. In my college days in the early 80s earning degrees in Economics, I silently fumed at my liberal Keynesian professors who so misunderstood the power of the free market, and I voted for and vocally supported the "conservative" politicians who espoused monetary policy and "letting the market reign." What they meant was "here's our banner to convince you we're worthy of leadership, but we're going to steal as much as those other guys...maybe more." Boy, have they ever.

When I hear right-wing mouthpieces talk about how healthy our economy is, and how there's no peak oil, or no climate change going on, it angers me. It's all designed to keep us sleeping and enjoying our sweet American Dream. When we wake up though, it won't be the radio alarm clock playing, because the power will be off.

Heather Ryan's story should be a personal warning to us all to prepare in any way we can for when we may be in her shoes. It should be a LOUD and PUBLIC alarm about a system in which this kind of thing could happen to someone so financially capable.

Thanks, Michael, for posting it.