Sidelined Again and Feeding Others

Let's eat, y'all! Red beans, rice and sausage and some cornbread stuffed with cheese and hot peppers. I need to make this tomorrow. I miss my Cajun foods.

Last two days the asthma has been insane again. Hitting the electric bong (nebulizer) like a fiend. Laying around coughing.

But something rather interesting happened yesterday. Something I've not seen happen since the economy crashed in the States in 2009. Someone ended up my doorstep begging for work or food. He approached wanting to pick our star fruit, oranges and mangoes. We let him.

Why? The answer goes way way back for me, all the way back to the insanity that was the late 1990s, when we were card carrying fundagelical Christians. I spent the two years of the run up to Y2K watching everyone else around me at Possum Creek Church (not the real name of the church but rather close!) lose their damn minds over Y2K.

I listened to folks claim for months on end that the end of the world was coming, that one had to stockpile food and toilet paper, generators and other things. Predictions of gloom, doom, anarchy in the streets babbled out endlessly by people I had previously thought was good stand up folks.

This is what happens when you have a community where fear is their primary motivation in every single thing, fear and self righteousness. I wasn't an expert, but I knew enough about computers and computer databases worked to know that the scenarios spun by my fellow churchgoers were unlikely. Sure, there might be some problems with the dates on computers in a few backwater places, but I figured it would be straightened out quickly.

The church brought in survivalist experts, early doomsday preppers, to lecture on what all you needed. I kind of shook my head and inwardly laughed over it.

I remember having a rather long conversation with a lady I knew at church and I told her I was relatively unconcerned, explaining why I thought just having a little extra food, filling your car up and having some extra cash might be wise, but it was very unlikely anything would happen.

She asked me what I planned on doing if armageddon went down like everyone was saying. I had to answer her that I would do what I always do. Feed our family out of our Costco hoard, and feed anyone that came to my door hungry from the same source. Even as I said it I never dreamed I would have to do that.

Fast forward 9 years later. The 2009 recession. Guys at my door begging to mow the grass or trim the bushes or anything. I rarely had work for them, but I did have whatever cash I could give them and I always sent them away with groceries from my Costco pile.

Ten years on. Looks like I might have to do that here during the Coronavirus. He picked the fruit, which I would have picked and hauled to the food bank anyway myself, and I got him together a bag of groceries from my PriceSmart hoarding. I guess somethings just never change.

Look, I'm not extraordinary.  I'm not special. I just hate seeing neighbors go hungry. I believe this is a large part of why we're on this planet, to help others when times are tough. We also donated our stimulus checks to the local food bank too. They need it so desperately right now, much more than we need it.

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