Like a lot of people, I was glued to the television watching the hurricane disaster that unfolded in the Carolinas. Those big beautiful homes on the beach have really taken a pounding. Of course, they have insurance and will rebuild. Not so, the poor folks that live inland. They probably don't have flood insurance. Some have no insurance at all and probably not a spare dollar in their pocket Those are the ones that I pray God helps.

It is hard to be poor. I know, having lived through the Great Depression. My dad was too proud to accept welfare, so we really suffered. He did farm work for forty dollars a month and a tenant house. We got by, but just barely.

Until I thought about those suffering during the flood, I had forgotten how hard it can be to put groceries on the table. I remember when I was first married during the late forties, supper could be a little lean by the end of the week. I tried to plan for each meal, but something would get in the way and mess me up. Maybe unexpected company or a cooking disaster. I have had a few of those. Burn a kettle of beans and try to figure out how to work around it. Things like that.

We built our first home when my husband was making eighty-five cents an hour working at the lumber yard. I worked in a factory for one dollar an hour. We bought building materials as we could afford them. That left very little for groceries. I limited myself to spending twenty dollars a week for food. That included milk, eggs, bread, meat and everything else. Prices were cheap back in the day but not that cheap when you consider the wages.

Many a night before payday we would have pancakes for supper. That was all I could scrape together. There wouldn't be any eggs to put in the pancake batter. I would stir up a pitcher of dry milk to make them. Back then, dry milk did not dissolve as easily as it does now. I probably could have added the dry milk to the flour, mixed it in, then added water to complete the batter, but I didn't know how to do that back then. I only had an old 1936 cookbook put out by subscribers of a newspaper. It wasn't very practical for a young woman just starting out, like me.

Where does all this lead? Well, I listened to the television tell of a man driving around for five hours looking for an open grocery store. My thought is that if he had enough gas to do that, he would have had enough money to stock up on a few groceries before the hurricane hit. My heart goes out to those who really live from paycheck to paycheck. Maybe this was the week that caught them short on funds. How do you tell your kids that “we're out of milk”?

Am I the only one who thinks this way? I hope not.