Funny but Sad

We distribute Government Surplus Food Commodities for Cheyenne County. Today was distribution day. Since the majority of the people who pick up commodities here are senior citizens, we try to coordinate the delivery so they can stop by and pick up the food after they go to lunch at the Senior Center. We have to keep the door locked while we are getting the food ready for distribution, as many of them feel the time frame we have set up applies only to the other people, not to them. They are chomping at the bit to get in and get their food. We opened the door 4 minutes early today. We timed the influx: within 14 minutes, 22 households had grabbed their commodities. It reminded me of an ant pile when a tasty morsel falls on to it. (I know, if we didn't let the kids put the worms and wounded grasshoppers on the ant hills I wouldn't have this comparison available in my brain.) None of these people appears undernourished. Old, yes. But starving? No. Then I remember that many of them are of an age where they can remember standing in the bread line during the depression. If you weren't at the front of the line, and the bread ran out you were simply out of luck and went hungry. I hope we never get to that point in America again.