The Line Goes Ever On

So I'm just back from the food shelf with most of our Thanksgiving Day meal.

I arrived within ten minutes of when they opened. There could have been as many as 100 people ahead of me in line. I counted more than fifty before the line went around a corner. And within minutes of my arriving there were twenty to thirty behind me.

We came in all sizes, ages, and shapes. Fat. Thin. Tall. Short. Old. Young. Marrieds, Singles. Not sure.

Of course with so many people it was inevitable that we stand and wait. Now for most people that is simply one of life's necessary inconveniences. For me it's a little bit different. Not much. It's just that my body interprets standing as a major exercise. And so within fifteen minutes of arriving people are checking out the windows to see if it's been raining. The good news about this is that people don't tend to crowd too close.

Anyway, the volunteers also came in a variety of sorts. Happy and cheerful. All business. Even grumpy. Not sure what she was doing there if she was in such a bad mood, but I'm glad she was there.

For whatever reason she had Miss Grumpy didn't want to deal with me and sent me across the room. Not sure what that was all about and I don't know that I really care. Let Miss Grumpy deal with someone else. I got the Ladies Helpful. They gave me a filled with stuff and told me to follow the arrows on the floor. As there were no arrows where I was I had to then make a search for them. They weren't far away.

For some reason the arrows bypassed Lady Extremely Friendly and her partner, Smiles Pleasantly. Instead, I found myself at the milk line where I was asked if I wanted one or two cartons of milk. I said I would take two, if that was all right, and I thanked Mr Very Nice, who then added that I could choose one item from the bread table and one item from the sweets table. I took a bag of Harvest Grain bread, cut into 18 nice slices, and a plastic see through container with three frosted long john type rolls.

As I was heading for the exit Lady Extremely Friendly and her partner, Smiles Pleasantly, flagged me down. Would I care for cranberries, pumpkin mix, and condensed milk? I used to like cranberries. They were one of my favorite things on the Thanksgiving table when I was very young. But those were fresh cranberries, soaked the night before. These were from a can and, if memory serves me right, look like jello. Son wouldn't take a taste without being threatened, and Spouse wouldn't at all. So I passed. The pumpkin was tempting, but I haven't ever made pumpkin pie. Unless I did as a kid. Lady Extremely Friendly showed me the recipe on the can and I got a can on pumpkin mix and condensed milk. I guess we'll be having pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Spouse will like that.

So what else did I get?

• A box of Swiss Miss hot cocoa mix. Spouse's favorite.
  
• A bag of sage and onion cube stuffing. Don't know how that will work. Spouse makes the greatest dressing from regular bread laid out overnight to get hard.
• A can of cut yams in light syrup. I like yams. Oh, these came from Lady Extremely Friendly, too.
• Two packets of turkey gravey mix. Not sure what that's about. We've always made our gravy from drippings in the roast pan.
• A bag of fat free marshmallows. Fat free. Good for me. Lots of sugar though. Not sure how marshmallows fit in with Thanksgiving.
• Two boxes of Jell-O gelatin. Lime and Strawberry.
• Two boxes of macaroni and cheese dinners. Spouse likes these.
• Two cans of apricot halves
• Two cans of whole kernel corn
• A box of Crispy Rice cereal, which is a generic version of Rice Krispies, I suppose.
• Oh, and vouchers for a 16# turkey and a 10# bag of potatoes

Now true, some of these things are things we would never have purchased on our own. But without them we wouldn't be having much of a Thanksgiving Day meal.

I looked at some of the faces as I stood in line. One tends not to do that a lot. People in give-a-way lines tend to avoid eye contact. For the most part we were a quiet lot. A couple of people knew each other from their neighborhoods. I didn't recognize anyone. But there was one young woman who's face seemed to snap a picture in my mind. I don't know if I can describe why well, but I'll give it a go.

She was young. I'll guess early twenties. She had on a nice leather coat. I happened to be at that place in line where it had bent back to go past the entrance as she arrived. She looked around quickly. It was that look that said "Let me find out where I need to be right away so I can go hide there." And that's what struck me. Everything in her face told me she didn't want to be there. She wanted to be someplace else. Anyplace else. But she had to be here. That was key. She had to. I wonder what my face said. Fortunately, I don't have to look at it, so I don't really know.

I'm guessing she is a recent addition to the needy line. I make this guess not just because her clothes were still very nice, and because she still had a cell phone. But because her face said that facing this kind of humility was a new experience. But she's young, and there is certainly a lot of hope for her. And if her face is any indication of her future, I would also venture to guess that she will do fine. But I hope she never forgets the feelings she has now, nor allows those feelings to make her hard and bitter. What I hope is that she will be filled with gratitude over the people who made this day possible for her and whatever family she has, for me and Spouse and Son, and for the more than one hundred others who were there with us.

The holiday season is upon us now. It is a time when many of us look upon ourselves with a new sense of loathing, disgust, and general shame. At the same time, it is a also a season when we look at others with a newfound sense of gratitude, appreciation, and thankfulness.

Some of you give to food shelves. Sometimes you may wonder if it's worth it. It is. And on behalf of those of us for whom it is worth it, I say Thank You.