I was born at the tail end of the baby boomers. It has been an odd place to be because I was not part of the rock and roll era and too young for the Vietnam era. My parents were in their forties when I was born so the generation gap was wider than for most kids. I grew up with my sisters twisting away and hearing stories of how rough the depression was for my parents.
My mother would talk about the depression whenever it came time to throw anything away. She was always concerned that there would be a use for an item once we got rid of it. She saved many things, but the worse was paper bags. She had stacks of them in her basement. She would keep the paper bags in the broom closet. She would open one of the paper bags and put others inside until the sack was full. Then she would carry it down to the basement and start the process over again. She would tell us that we never knew when we could use paper bags.
After my father died my mother continued to live in the house that they shared, until she decided that it was too much to keep clean. She decided to move into a senior apartment building. I mentioned to several people at the lunch table at work that I was dreading having to carry all the paper bags out of mom?s house. The volunteer coordinator told me that she could use as many bags as I could supply her with. She takes paper bags to area schools and has first and second graders draw pictures on them and also have them write a holiday message. The bags are then taken to the food shelve to put canned goods in for the needy. She said that each year it is getting harder to find paper bags because so many people bring their groceries home in plastic bags. I told her that I would go to my mother?s house after work and load up my car with the paper bags.
After work I went to my mother?s house. She had several boxes sitting out that she was in the process of packing. I told her about the program of the children using paper sacks to send holiday wishes to the needy. She was thrilled that her bags would go to such good use. She reminded me that you never know when you are going to find a use for something. I had thirty bags full of bags that I delivered to the volunteer coordinator. She said that she would have one of the students do a thank you bag for my mom.
