Bad Times Sometimes The Best Of All

Having been called all sorts of names at some point in time, when someone referred to me as "Pollyanna," I was taken aback. After all, I have never played the "Glad Game," and my hair is much too short. I think I was insulted, but I’m not really sure. However, after awhile, I realized that I have never been stopped by someone that said "Oh, Darcie, you were so mean spirted and cynical today, it absolutely made my day. I simply can’t enjoy my coffee unless you give me a healthy dose of nastiness and spew some vitriol at breakfast." So since, this has never happened,(unless you happen to be married to me), I will put back on my frilly white pinafore, braid my hair, and say what I originally intended to say.

A great man once said that whenever something doesn’t make sense, turn it upside down. Look at it again. And then maybe you will understand. As we all face devastating financial predictions in the news every day, and tails of another Great Depression are returning, we all may be trying to make sense of what has happened to our world.

I found myself worrying and wondering whether I would have enough money for the newest version of Dance Dance Revolution. Would I still be able to upgrade to a Playstation 3? Or would I be standing on an exit ramp with a cardboard sign offering cheap labor. Maybe I should buy dark glasses instead. Maybe I could figure out how to get buy without needing electricity anymore.

But, then I glanced up at the photos of when the kids were small and thought of my most precious memories. So many were early in our marriage when money was short, time was long, and love was abundant. Would it really be so bad to return to those days? Had something been lost when we had pulled ourselves out of that newly married financial pit? Or had the lights been on so long that we had forgotten how much fun it was while the power was out?

So many evenings were enjoyed with friends with just a deck of cards and a casserole. I made tons of jambalaya. Jambalaya was southern and delicious, but also really cheap and would stick to your ribs. Were more recent evenings of fine dining and sitting silently beside friends while listening to an expensive concert really better than those long ago nights of Coca-Cola and Canasta?

The weekly trip to the movies might end, where we munched on $12 hot dogs and $15 Cokes, while watching and actor who earns 60 million a movie. But way back when, we couldn’t even afford cable. So unless it was Sunday night where Married With Children and In Living Color were on Fox, the other six nights a week, we bundled up the boys and walked around the block. We spent hours squealing at scarecrows and pumpkins and snowmen and Santas, while our breath hung in the air and the boys pointed at the moon. If we have to give up our 287 cable channels, will we get to see the stars once more?

Or long summer afternoons when we would borrow a boat and my mom dropped us off on Bodcau to canoe back to Dogwood. But we got lost in the lake and had to swat away millions of spiders while rowing back to the spot we began. But, the truck was in Dogwood, and it was a time before cell phones, so we began the long hike to the nearest corner store. We were thrilled when a policeman pulled up and offered a ride. I got to sit in the backseat for once where the cop wasn’t frowning, and I didn’t have to sit on my hands. And what a wonderful feeling to emerge from the cruiser, give a great big stretch, so everyone could see "No Cuffs!" (This time.... )

Those days of sitting on the curb, slurping Big Gulps, and squishing ants while waiting for the truck to come back have been lost to speedboats in Hot Springs, Jet Ski rentals, and tubing. I still have my canoe, but it lies silently in the yard waiting for us to slow down and find it again.

No one can deny that our country is teetering on the brink of a very scary financial future for all. But, just maybe, we can take some solace in the advice of that same great man. If our world turns upside down, take the time to look at it from that new direction, and, just maybe, that upside down world is not so scary after all.