The other day, Sena and I were talking about growing up in Mason City, Iowa. As kids, both of us were the ones who lugged the groceries home. That was back in the days of paper sacks and, for me and her, food stamps. The food stamp program got started during the Great Depression. The goal was to keep people from starving and farmers from going under. In other words, it was kindness.
Food stamps were a sign of hard times and I don’t think that has changed much, except now I think you get a debit card instead of stamps.
I did grocery shopping at Fareway Store, which got its start in Boone, Iowa. Sena did hers at Grupps Food Center.
When it comes to shopping, I followed what my mother put on a list. I got the items and paid with food stamps. I can’t remember ever coming up short. I think I just gave them the cashier the stamps and they took what was needed to cover the price. I walked to Fareway and then I just walked home carrying two or three paper sacks of groceries. It was about a mile trip up and a mile back. My arms were pretty sore when I got home.
On the other hand, Sena came up short on stamps one day. It was embarrassing enough to have to pay using food stamps. But it was awkward as hell when you didn’t have enough to pay. At that time, the cashier was a guy named Bud Grupp. Bud was Carl Grupp’s son. Carl bought the store in the early 1960s.
Bud counted out the stamps and had to tell Sena that there wasn’t enough. She didn’t know what to say. People were lined up behind her and they could probably tell something was wrong. Bud just said “We’ll put you on credit,” and that was that. He sacked all of the groceries like there was nothing out of the ordinary. Sena didn’t know what was done about the balance on credit, whether it was ever settled or it became just a running bill that never got paid off.
Sena also had to walk home carrying bags of groceries. One winter day during a light snowfall, she dropped all of the bags in the snow. They got wet and all torn up. A woman saw it, came out of her house with some bags and helped Sena get the groceries sacked up again. She got home alright.
About a year ago, Sena was in line waiting to check out groceries. An elderly woman was ahead of her and came up short on money to pay for her few items. She fished in her purse and looked embarrassed and pathetic. Sena was thinking about paying for them herself but just before she could, a guy behind her handed the cashier his credit card and told her he would cover it.
Regardless of what you see in the news, kindness is still out there. Our Christmas cactus is already blooming.
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