I think I'm finally starting to understand some of the things my parents did. Now that we are in the worst recession since the great depression - it's starting to make sense.

For example....I never understood why we had the same crummy old vegetable peeler with the dull blades. A vegetable peeler when I was kid cost less than a dollar. Then you figure for inflation and so maybe we're up to about three or four dollars in today's money. That's for the really cheap version. You can go up to about twenty dollars pretty easily for a fancy stainless steel veggie peeler today. I remember that ours was dotted with rust, had a very dull blade, and I always scraped my knuckles when I peeled the potatoes. It never once occurred to me that maybe we could have a new potato peeler. When I moved out and bought a peeler for 79 cents I felt like I'd been duped, scraping my knuckles for all those years! But now....I'm starting to understand why we never got a new peeler. We had one. We were still able to peel potatoes. What more did we need?

When I graduated from high school, my parents - primarily my father - didn't allow me to send out graduation announcements. I understood, even then, that it didn't really have much if anything to my parent's ability to afford the announcements. My dad said that in sending the announcements, it was the same as asking for a gift. Now I didn't really see it that way at the time, but now....I'm starting to get it. In today's economy, every penny counts, just like it did when my dad was growing up. My dad was actually trying to be thoughtful - I think he didn't want people to feel like they had to spend more than they were able. They never complained about purchasing gifts whenever a graduation announcement arrived, but I know their income was modest by any standards.

Lately I've been thinking that I'll remember this summer as "the year that I fed my daughter."
She's ten, and she seems to have a voracious appetite. She doesn't have an ounce of fat on her, but the child can eat! I try to at least steer her towards healthy choices, but in this economy, healthy often equates to "more money". There were six kids in my dad's family, and after my grandfather lost his hardware store, I don't think things were ever quite the same for them. My dad tells me stories - true - of the six kids - five boys and my Aunt Ruby (the eldest) sleeping in a tent in the snow. Sometimes we hear people talking about their parents saying "when I was a kid I had to walk five miles in the snow to school", and somehow they think their parents were adding a needless embellishment to their story in an effort to make them stop complaining. I always knew the tent story was true. For one thing, my dad is the most honest person I've ever met - he'd never embellish to make a point. Sometimes now, perhaps because he's older, he's painfully honest with me. But I always know where things stand with us. Anyway, my grandparents were farmers. They had six mouths to feed. Now I understand why my grandmother always kept chickens, why she always had a garden, and certainly not the least of which - why she was such a great cook!

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember my mom talking about FDIC insurance. She said you never want to put all of your money in one bank. My mom and step-father were not wealthy, but they had saved a nice nest egg by the time that they both had passed away. I actually had to be quite firm with my mom's probate attorney, who had put all of her funds into a single bank account, which was over even the new temporary FDIC insurance limits. He was quite irritated with me - as was the bank - when I withdrew funds and deposited them elsewhere. However, within a week of my doing so - more banks were failing and my attorney admitted that he was now advising other probate clients to do likewise.

So tonight, when there was a piece about recession ettiquette on the evening news, I understood. I know what it means to think about others. Even dinner party ettiquette is different now. More often than now, a dinner party invitation in my world is pot luck, and everyone contributes something. It's too much to expect one family to pay for everyone. We all contribute. And now, more than anything, I'm starting to understand some of the things my parents did.

Recently, I've been cleaning out a lot of things, and going through a lot of papers. It seems that I'm drowning in paper. My latest filing system is this: for financial records, if the taxes are done, toss it. Personal papers become more problematic though. I'm sentimental. If I had the space, I'd save every piece of paper that my daughter brings home from school. Intstead, I'm relegated to hanging onto a "representative sample" - whatever that means. All these masterpieces - how to choose!

But lately, what has brought me the most comfort is rediscovering what a true friend my little nine-year old daughter was to her Grandma. Chanti and her grandmother were *very* close. Chanti loved to do things to make her Grandma happy. On one of her more lucid days, my mom said "My favorite thing to be called is "Grandma". I love being Grandma." And oh Chanti loved her. I found a pretty handmade card with flowers on it that said, "Grandma, I'm so proud of you that you're going back to Senior Center! Love, Chanti".