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The Gleaners by Jean-Francois Millet, 1857, oil on canvas
I always find myself rolling my eyes when I hear the words, "in these economic times" uttered in a bar, or at a dinner party, or especially on television. I don't know why. Maybe it's because the phrase is often used as an excuse for something that wouldn't happen anyway:
"In these economic times, I can't just up and leave for Barcelona."
"In these economic times, I'll never get that promotion."
"In these economic times, that girl across the room won't date a guy like me."
We're probably in a recession and it's likely that things will get worse before they get better. But it's just... "In These Economic Times." It sounds kind of stupid. What do they know? What do any of us really know?
Well, we know this: local charities have now been beset by hard times. Demand for groceries, clothing and housing assistance have gone up, donations have gone down. But way up north in the town of Platteville, the Miller family decided to help out. The Millers own 600 acres of farmland, and after their fall festival, they had thousands of extra pounds of produce. With a deep freeze coming to the area soon, the Millers on Saturday announced a free food day. They expected between 5,000 and 10,000 people to come and glean their fields. 40,000 showed up. Cars were backed up for two miles.
On the bright side, I learned a new word today: gleaning. Gleaning is the act of collecting crops from a farmers' field after it has been harvested. Below, you'll find a video of the glean scene from the Rachel Maddow show, it starts about 2 minutes into the clip.
There are two separate, almost opposite emotional reactions that you can have to this story. Instead of the "harbinger of economic doom," the affable Maddow, god bless her, chooses to take the sunny, "good deed done right" view. I find that one hard to muster up right now.
The election of Barack Obama was supposed to make America feel renewed, like maybe now these economic problems are simply logistical obstacles that can be defeated, rather than hopeless reminders that we're all screwed. And for the most part, I believe that we are renewed, that we can still do anything that we put our minds to.
But seriously, 40,000 people just went up to Platteville for free vegetables.
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