What's for Dinner??

Hope Valentines Day was a happy one for you and yours. It can't help but bring memories of paper covered boxes, the smell of steaming radiators and the feel of glitter stuck to your fingers. Remember those huge jars of paste in your teacher's "supply" closet. We would go, one by one and put a big glob on a paper towel, take it back to our desk and start creating. Homeroom parties were a simple affair-a cookie with red sugar crystals, a cup of Hawaiian Punch and Conversation Hearts to take home with our valentines.

I was invited to not one but two Valentine Parties this year. Wagner's three-year-old party was stimulating, creative and bountiful. Games, stories, songs, food and favors were in abundance. Also in abundance were parents and grandparents. We were circling the room, cameras rolling as the children partied. My Wagner seemed a little confused. He kept singing Happy Birthday to Me and looking for presents. After all, his birthday was only 3 weeks ago. It's hard for a boy to keep all his parties straight.

Big sister Annebelle celebrated the next day. Her party was in the gym and amazing to behold. There were bouncy houses, carnival games, a valentine luncheon and a cupid-clad mother, sprinkling Love Dust on the heads of all the revelers. There were decorated cookies in individual gift sacks and cupcakes with icing in red and pink and purple. Every little girl had some kind of Valentine- Themed ensemble on and a bow the size of a fist on their head. It was a grand affair.

I want my grandchildren to have a wonderful life. I will do everything possible to insure they do. Their parents and all of us who love them will sacrifice anything so they grow up safe, secure and protected. However, I just could not help to see the irony in my activity in the very same building, the very same day.

I joined other friends at St Paul to pack backpacks. Did you know that churches in Muskogee provide "take home" food for every school in our community, even MHS. Children are identified who might not have enough to eat over the weekend and they receive ten items including fruit, milk, proteins and starches. We packed puddings, granola bars, Vienna sausages, pretzels....certainly better than being hungry but not a hot meal.

I certanly trust the people who tell me this is needed in our community. I also know this is certainly not limited to Muskogee. A friend who teaches in OKC shares their Food Service provides the items for the weekend. I just question our very expensive but obviously inefficient welfare system. All that bureaucracy and American children are actually going hungry. I also question priorities in some families. Addictions and lifestyle choices often put children last in the hierarchy within a family.

Everybody responded to Haiti with millions and millions of dollars. They needed it. However, as a country, we must address our own issues. A Human Service system that has proven to be ineffectual. A segment of our population that does not know how to be self -sufficient and how to work toward an effective solution. A nation of children who eat their supper from a plastic wrapper or they get no supper at all.

American needs to figure this out and quickly. Children learn what they live. These children are walking wounded and the situation becomes more critical every day. I wish I had the answer. Shoot. I wish I knew what the questions were. chrissie