One Red, One Blue

I had four dresser drawers on my half of the dresser, as I was growing up. Top drawer was for my tops. Next drawer was jeans. My treasure drawer full of books, chockeys and lint followed. And farthest from the top was my underwear door. Not that I needed an entire door for my panties, I only owned two pair. That left only one pair to occupy my underwear door at any given time.

During my fifth and six grade years, the lumbar mill where my father worked was on strike. Dad was the foreman and could of gotten another job elsewhere. He chose not to, he thought had to remain loyal for his "boys." Boys is what he called his crew that had wanted the strike for higher wages and was mostly made up of younger men without family. Men with less obligations who could go longer without a paycheck. My mother, being a professional housewife, generated no income either. Not that we had ever been affluent, we learned to make do with even less. My family was fortunate that we had no house payment. We heated our home with wood and our meals revolved around venison and Moms garden. It was an easier time for me than my sister who was already in highschool. I could use her hand me downs. Just not the underwear.

One day we ran out of peanut butter at home for a sandwich that made up my school lunch. I knew not to even ask my parents for lunch money, there was none. As I was counting out my Christmas change, the money I had earned picking wild blueberry's during the summer, my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Christianson, (silly Millie Gillie, the class taunted her behind her back, as she had been a Gillie, a million years ago, before she had married a Christianson) watched pationtly as I fumbled and scroundged through my pockets for enough money for a meal ticket. Millie, who never ever left the class room unattended, because after all, we were an unruly lot, had a sudden emergency and left the room for a good ten minutes. I continued to stand at her desk, until I had gathered the last of my pennies for that days lunch. I returned to me seat and made the most of my free time with my classmates until Millie finally came back to a class that, by this time, was in quite an uproar. Wanting to regain control of her chaotic classroom, Millie first stops at her desk, slamming her cash box shut containing all the lunch money, before grabbing out a handful of tickets. She walks past my desk and slides a stack of them onto it and zealously attempts to quieten the rowdy kids and start our days lessons. I tucked all those tickets into the forefront of my desk and counted them when I had a chance. I slipped my hand into the crack of open desk, as I pretended to be concentrating and counted them with my fingers. There were over a months worth of tickets in that pile. I had enough tickets to eat lunch for up until Thanksgiving. I had an excited and sick feeling in the pit of my stomach knowing I could eat a real lunch but it was a mistake. I waited behind when all the other kids ran down to gym class. "Mrs. Christianson, you gave me too many tickets" I confessed to Millie when the class had cleared the room. "You are late for gym, Munkay", Millie quietly told me, "run off and I will count the balance in my cash box when you are gone and I will see if there has been a mistake."

Welfare, my proud parents thought,were for the poor . It was never brought up in our home that we would go on any assistance. My help came in the form of my sixth grade teacher. "Nonsense, she told me after gym. I don't make mistakes. The money was right to the penny. Somehow that stack of lunch tickets in my desk never ran out that year. They just unexplainably appeared. Mrs. Christenson knew pride ran in our family.

When my son's lunch funds get low in his account balance, his school stamps his hand as a visual reminder for me to send in a check. K2 came home the other day with his hand stamped and informed me he needed money for his account as his balance was getting low. "And what happens if you run completely out?", I asked him. "Then we ONLY get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich mom! Please don't make me eat that, it's looks so embarrasing." That's ok baby", I answered him, "I won't make you eat peanut butter. Go and count how many underwear you have in your drawer."

My children enjoy when I tell them my hardship stories. They just have a hard time believing them. Of that I'm glad.