Wednesday, October 3, 1984

After I left Alma's, I picked up my new $15.00 Plexiglas, storm-door panel. I bought some groceries and went home.

I fed the dogs. I washed more of the dishes and cleaned the cupboard they belong in. I put my stainless-steel silverware in bleach water to soak overnight. I folded the load of dry laundry I'd left drying in the dryer yesterday, laundered some towels and put them in the dryer. I filled the pool just enough to be able to prime the filter pump this weekend. Then I went to work at Ruth's.

The Physician Task Force on Hunger in America was in our area today, and the chairman of the task force said "the group did not like what it saw". He said "the most striking difference here is flying into the breadbasket of the world and finding real hunger". Another group member said that "cuts in federal food stamp programs and reduction in other food assistance deals are burying the local money and morale". The National Director of the Food Research and Action Center in Washington, DC, said "The seven billion dollars that were cut from the food stamp program in the last four years needs to be restored. When you see a need of this scope, it is beyond volunteer means to feed the hungry. People are losing hope." A task force member from the Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, said "utilities are very much at the root of the hunger problem. The predatory role of utilities is as much to blame for the hunger problem as anything. People already limping along are being hounded by the utilities." He said The task force will appeal to Congress to help get things back to normal. This is a national problem and we're going to tell anyone who will listen in Washington about it, and we're going to tell some people who don't want to listen too."