May Day

Not today. Even though it's May first, it is not a day for flower baskets and bare toes.

It has been cold and rainy or drizzly. Levees have given way in several places this year causing much flooding. A levee broke over on the east coast of our state by Davenport.

Young Fuzzy picked up a load of concrete product, and as he left the plant they were closing it down. No one in or out.

Many things stand out in the research I've done about the Great Depression. One thing that impresses me is the people from that time.

I've interviewed people from that era. They are extremely intelligent, and their memories are amazing.

Recently, a trucker asked a couple of old farmers that had been through that era, as very young boys, 'Have you ever seen a year like this year has been so far?'

We've had record cold and snow this year, and now we have rain and it is chilly and damp.

"Well," one of the old boys says, "back in '35 it was like this. Cold, snow—then in early June the rain stopped. Crops burnt up. We didn't harvest a thing that year."

***

The Berlin Wall came down in 1990 and three years later some brave souls were venturing to take the gospel to a country where it had not been welcome for quite some time.

Old Fuzzy spent three weeks on a mission trip to Russia that year and two more times. They were allowed to check two suitcases on the plane. The people who went on the mission trips were told to take one suitcase of food and supplies, and one suitcase of clothes.

One of the things that amaze people who come to this country from other countries is our grocery stores.

In contrast to our stores, in Russia they were small shops, where items to be sold were in glass cases. You asked for and paid for your selection. If memory serves me, the case had to be unlocked to get the item out.

Where we have an abundant supply of copious amounts of different items, in Russia (at that time) they didn't always have the same goods available every day or at all times.

More people ought to travel to different areas of the world. It would be an eye-opening experience.

***

I pray that this year isn't like the year 1935 where we don't get a crop, yet consider. Our stores receive a constant supply of food. Several times a week the local grocery store is restocked as trucks deliver their wares.

Grocery stores here are restocked often in a week and our prices aren't as cheap as we'd like but we take for granted the blessings we have. Food, clothing, and shelter...the basic necessities. Be thankful to God for these things.

Ecclesiastes 5:9 "Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.

10) He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance, with increase: this also is vanity. 11) When goods increase, they are increased that eat them; and what advantage is there to the owner thereof, save the beholding of them with his eyes? 12) The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the fulness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.