Don't get me started

Reader comment on: The Food Stamp President

Submitted by Karlyle Young (United States), Aug 20, 2011 21:07

I wrote about this just yesterday on my blog, The Inconsequential Curmudgeon

I want to be under privileged, too.

At a few years shy of 40, I'm not what I consider old. I have a few "back in the day" stories but none like my grandaddy told of his youth. Of the thousands of things Grandaddy shared with me, an important lesson was how his father worked tirelessly to keep his family together after Grandaddy's mother died when he was four, leaving behind her husband, three sons and two daughters.

When my grandparents married, Grandaddy worked in a coal mine and Granny taught school. They started house with furniture and appliances bought at the company store. They worked hard, scrimped and saved and raised a family and a garden. Grandaddy said they were so poor they didn't even know The Great Depression was going on.

Maybe it is because I have Grandaddy's stories always brimming just below the surface of my brain that I just want to explode when I see the shining examples of America's future, in their tattooed and pierced glory, at the gas station buying potato chips, soft drinks and fancy cold coffee beverages with the critical-to-the-survival-of-my-five-illegitimate-children food stamp cards.

What gets my goat about as bad as seeing these scoundrels is watching the nightly news run story after story about some overpaid, over coiffed politician telling me we need to take care of the under privileged in this country. What does Senator Stick-Up-The-Butt know about the under privileged? Does he know about doing without so you can pay your employees? Does he know about paying employees at all? Does he know about driving like Miss Daisy because gasoline costs too much to even drive the speed limit? He wouldn't know the under privileged if we all went up to his marble-clad, silk-curtained, antiques-filled office (teeming with 150 aides he doesn't pay for) and took turns stomping his foot.

All the while, the "under privileged" have the privilege of new cell phones, new clothes, $5-a-pack cigarettes and my money buying their Funyons and Frappucinos!

---

Note: Comments are moderated by the editor and are subject to editing.

Other reader comments on this item

Title	By	Date
Food Stamps [167 words]	Bob Mantione	Aug 21, 2011 04:16
⇒ Don't get me started [347 words]	Karlyle Young	Aug 20, 2011 21:07
drinks, sodas, [130 words]	Jacqueline Whittig	Aug 20, 2011 19:08
President Obama Food Stamp President [20 words]	Dave Devol	Aug 20, 2011 12:45
why food stamps [66 words]	James	Aug 20, 2011 11:19

Comment on this item