So Many Thoughts...

There are so many things going through my mind dear readers. I know you are there. Taking in these words and hopefully enjoying them. Sometimes it's nice just to read without saying a word. Most times I do the same thing as I roam around the Internet. I have to remind myself. But sometimes it feels like my words are floating away into the ether...

Have you listened to The Splendid Table with Lynne Rossetto Kasper? So many interesting food and cooking shows on NPR! No wonder SNL can't help but parody them with The Delicious Dish. Anyway, I noticed a section on the website called Where We Eat. Jane and Michael Stern drive all around the United States looking for good food and report back on the places that they find.

It's a wonderful listing by city and state of different places to try and what each particular place is known for. So you can eat your way across the country or just check out a particular state or region. Have you visited any of the places? Last year I visited the All-Star Sandwich Bar in Cambridge. Read my post here.

Thinking about how there is so much lack in the middle of so much plenty also has been on my mind. My mother told me that she was watching The Callie Crossley Show and learned that many students at Bunker Hill Community College don't have enough food. Wick Sloane, who teaches at the college was interviewed about an article that he wrote for Inside Higher Ed. Apparently it's a big issue in community colleges all over the country, not just here in Massachusetts.

Just thinking about this issue stuns and angers me. Below is a portion of Sloane's article called So My Students Can Eat.

Students have been crying in my office at Bunker Hill Community College every week since September and, some weeks, every day. Hungry. Often homeless. Often jobless. 

One who was hungry and nearly homeless had an A in calculus. “Have you eaten today?” is a question I use more often than “Do you need help with your homework?”  She wouldn’t say. As the student cried in my office and spoke with a gentle colleague, I bought a sandwich, some fruit, and a bottle of orange juice from the cafeteria.  The student drank the juice and put the food in her bag to take home. 

The student had a class and said she’d return later in the afternoon to finish the conversation.  With $25 from my colleague in my pocket, I walked to Johnnie’s Foodmaster in Charlestown and bought a $50 food card that we gave to the student later.  She cried again. 

What is wrong with this country? We must do better. I don't have the answer, but as someone who is part of the food community, I would like to do something. 

Riding home on the T tonight, I felt like I was in the middle of the television show What Would You Do? Sitting next to me were two young black girls, maybe 14 or 15 years old. They were being rather giggly and silly as teenage girls often do. But then one girl started talking about Hillary Clinton and her job.

They knew she was the Secretary of something. Maybe Delaware or some other state they thought. "Of the whole country," they wondered aloud. I smiled to myself and wondered if I should say something. Then they started asking who was our Senator and who was the Vice President. Neither of them knew. They started asking louder, maybe hoping someone would answer.

Nobody said anything, so I asked, "Do you really want to know?" I told them that we have two Senators, John Kerry and Scott Brown. That Joe Biden is the Vice President and Hillary Clinton is the Secretary of State. They said they knew Joe Biden was Vice President and thanked me.

Maybe I overstepped, but I think we should answer kids questions. Maybe nobody on the train near us knew the answers. Or didn't care. Maybe that's how Scott Brown got elected!

I wanted to tell them that Brown is a Republican and up for re-election and Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, is running against him. I wanted to tell them how important it is to vote and that the decisions that politicians make are so important to our everyday lives. I wanted to tell them we have to decide what we believe in and figure out who will best represent us.

I wanted to talk to them. But I didn't say anything else. I wasn't sure if they really wanted to hear it. Maybe it wasn't my place. Hopefully they will discuss this with their parents.  Anyway, it was almost time for me to get off the train. So I briefly looked at them, smiled, then went back to my book.

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