Hard Times?

We have a song on cassette that includes the phrase, "Hard times, hard times, come again no more." I think it's a fact that we have at least a couple of generations living who have not experienced "hard times." Granted there are still many people in this country who are living in "hard times." But that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

My parents often told stories of the hard times they experienced early on in our family. My father traveled a lot as an evangelist and told of times when he came home from such a trip with less money than he left home with. There was even one time when he spoke for a week or so in a small church in Missouri when he needed to borrow money to come home.

In the story of my parents written by my sister, she told of the way our mother needed to "create" things for the family to eat, such as "sand plum pudding," and "white pudding." Sand plum pudding was made by picking sand plums from the roadside, cooking them, and mixing them with sugar and flour. It was eaten with milk. White pudding was made by grinding suet, mixing it with flour and seasoning, and stuffing it into a small cloth bag, then soaked in hot water and left to dry. It was sliced and served like mush.

Many could tell stories of hard times. Will the hard times come again? Who knows? I am all for conserving energy, resources, and being frugal in whatever ways we can. But that all is hard to do when we live in a society that is literally overrun by consumerism. And affluence. I remember when it was the goal of young people to want to be millionaires. Now we live in the age of multi-billionaires. It seems totally impossible that "hard times" will ever come again. I think most people in the younger generations feel that having all they want is the normal thing and it will always be that way.

But as we know, things in this world seem to run in cycles. I hope that we never need to return to making sand plum pudding and white pudding, but I suppose there are many people in this world right now for whom these hard times foods would be a good meal.

Pilgrim on the way