Go here and read the article. Seriously. Clicket on the link, because according to AP's new $2.50 per word charge for bloggers who excerpt their stories, I can't quote it here. Don't be lazy. Clicket.

Ok, so for those of you who were too lazy to clicket, here's a quick summary: two cute little Salt Lake City kiddies decided to go downtown and protest against high gas prices because their mom had to choose which "necessity" she could afford to pay: gas or cable. As you might imagine, the cable was turned off and her children decided to protest---because they couldn't watch their favorite cartoons.

They even incorrectly spelled 'money' ('monny') and 'cable' ('cabel') on their protest signs. I'm not cutting them any slack on this one because of their ages.

Contrast this bit of cuteness with my father's childhood. At the tender age of four, he was responsible for slicing off part of his three-year-old brother's finger. He didn't do this maliciously. It was an accident. It happened whilst the pair of them were CHOPPING WOOD. Meaning, the implement he wielded to cut said wood (and said finger) was an ax, and his little brother was holding the splitter. I shit you not. This actually happened. And, as my father will undoubtedly say in his defense, the whole finger didn't come off, but just the tip---and they were able to sew it back on, too, and considering this was the mid-1930's, in the Nebraska sticks, that was nothing short of amazing. Of course, since Dad lived on a farm for part of his youth, I've heard all sorts of various horror stories about dust-bowl era farm life, one in particular was about my Granny being swarmed by mice as she opened a water tank (apparently, my father still has an abhorrence of mice to this very day because of this incidence). Eventually his family was forced off the farm, and into Omaha, because, partly, of swarms of grasshoppers that cleaned out their crops. After he moved to Omaha, he worked at a family member's grocery store for $0.35 an hour---for forty hours a week and paid his own high school tuition.

I'm sure it never would have occurred to Dad to make a sign and go up by the side of the road to protest the more horrible parts of the Great Depression, which hit him and his family full force. (What would the sign have read? "DO SOMETHING ABOUT GRASSHOPPER PLAGUES NOW!"? ) Everyone would have been hard hit, so it wouldn't have made any sense to protest. Besides, he had chores to do: he wouldn't have had the time.

I'm absolutely sure about one other thing, though: since my father was the 1944 Platte County Spelling Bee champion, he would have known how to spell 'money' and 'cable'. Probably at age seven, but definitely by age nine---the ages of the young girls in Salt Lake City. Sadly, Dad couldn't go and compete against the other county champions at the state competition because---ahem---they didn't have a state spelling bee because of---ahem---WWII and fuel rationing.

Kinda makes being deprived of 'cabel' seem pretty nice in comparison, eh?

(See, it's good to have a non-Boomer set of parents. Their stories are just SO much better than "Well, I first learned to FIGHT THE MAN when my old man said I had to start mowing the lawn for a measly quarter...")

Posted by: Kathy at 12:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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