MEEKER | This is how it is now — no same old/same old, no business as usual — as we all attempt to go back to our daily lives. Reading a magazine article recently I came across that phrase and the obtuse “new normal” that is used to describe daily life in our community, as well as our country. Most of us have been trying to forge forward and go about our regular routines.
Now we hear dire reports daily about something called supply insufficiency, which creates the empty shelves in the marketplace. I think this term only serves to place the listener far away from the real problem. This results in a major disconnect.
A few months ago, the term food insufficiency was coined to describe hunger. Families lined up at food banks, as more and more people were laid off, evicted from their homes, and manufacturers stopped making products. Pat phrases describing the problems faced by so many in these tumultuous times do nothing but blur the collective visual picture that needed to come into view to figure out how to move forward.
Children going hungry each day is not acceptable. It never has been. It is true that small towns are more insular and families continue to provide for their own. Here the definition of family expands and community members pitch in to ensure the safety and well-being of everyone.
There is always something every one of us can do to make sure children are fed, clothed and educated. Anything that keeps us at arm’s length from pitching in and solving problems such we are facing these days is a dangerous distraction.
This is how it is now.
By DOLLY VISCARDI – Special to the Herald Times
