There was little doubt about what my favorite room was during my childhood.
It was my grandmother's kitchen pantry.
There, you could find a small carton of 61 2-ounce Coca-Cola bottles waiting for that oh-so-special occasion, since having a cold Coke wasn't a simple afterthought in those days.
Perhaps there would be a fresh box of Ritz crackers, another goodie that seemed special any time a new jar of peanut butter flanked it on the shelf.
A salt box always was a good sign. Not your everyday table salt, but that used for homemade ice cream. That came during the really special occasions, and in the days of hand-cranked ice cream buckets, my job was to put a towel on top of the bucket and plop down on it while my Dad cranked it.
Having a child sit on the ice cream bucket helped keep the ice in it and made the crank easier to operate.
Those with experience in such preparations know what I mean.
Those puzzled by that job description are the fast-food babies or the soda fountain urbanites.
***
Everything in my grandmother's pantry, like ours at home, was carefully inventoried and used with purpose.
One of the other items always there was the flour bucket.
She would buy large sacks of flour, then empty them into the sealed tin bucket, which in the days before Tupperware came with a lid we would have to pry off to open.
I'll never forget what she told me every time I'd watch her empty one of the cloth flour sacks: "We used to use these
During the Depression, she said, they put everything to use, and not one thing was wasted.
The impression she made most on me about it, though, was not so much with the flour sack being used to put clothes on her back, but how vividly she remembered that thing called a Depression.
Our economy today is not going to rebound on just the vote of Congress to provide a bailout plan aimed mostly at restoring the credit market.
Even that won't work if people fail to understand that with credit, paying it off is half the equation. Too many of us think that borrowing and buying is something we can do well; let someone else worry about the paying-it-back problem.
That doesn't cut it.
Making matters worse, it's not just credit-risk consumers who spend that way. It is exactly how our federal government has operated as well.
Our debt as a nation has soared, and our leaders' response seems too often to be: keep borrowing.
It matters little what political party they're from, because no real heroes have emerged on Capitol Hill to show us anything different.
Sooner or later, we have to pay, or the gimme-gimme attitude will say, as it seems to be doing now, gotcha!
Let's hope our nation can and will realize solutions in a way that can be done through economic stimulus rather than having to count Ritz crackers in the pantry.
***
There are fear-mongers who love to remind us of the Great Depression of the 1930s, but our situation today is much different from those days when your bank deposit was not protected, when there was no such thing as the Internet to spread instant trade communications, when global trade was not as critical and when, most importantly, there was no similar history to have learned from to understand that panic is our worst enemy.
The flip side is, there are those who still refuse to say that we're in a recession. The textbook definition may differ, but Joe Blow on the street doesn't need a Ph.D. to argue this country is in a recession and it will take good leadership and good jobs and good markets to help us bounce back.
It saddens me to reflect on how our nation's industry has sent factories packing for cheaper labor markets and left us here with fewer jobs where we actually make something. That, however, is how the world is changing and trying to fight that is like trying to put fingers into a leaky dike.
Still, look around.
If we produce our own oil and natural gas, that energy is a commodity much in need right here at home, and one we still buy too much of from foreign countries. Likewise for other energy resources such as wind, solar, coal, water and various alternatives that can help meet energy needs. We produce it, right here at home.
Arts and crafts are a woven reflection of our social fabric. Craftsmen and artists who are talented here are making something of value that others purchase and share.
Agriculture and ranching is not just a way of life, but a way of putting food on the table.
Tools, equipment and rockets are among the products produced from the manufacturing base we have here.
***
It is difficult to think we can turn the timetable around and go back to the days of old when it comes to being a total production-independent nation. That no longer is the way of the world as we drift deeper into the technology era and the world becomes smaller by the day.
However, it is not foolish to realize that there remains at our disposal the means to become a stronger economic partner than just depending on a never-ending credit line. Meaning, we need to think like real workers again.
Meaning, we need to focus in school again, and we need to earn what we spend as consumers, and we need to be accountable, and we need to be willing to work and feel good about when we go out to buy.
Meaning, that thing called "American ingenuity" needs a rebirth.
So, look around.
Are we missing all of that, or do we simply need to find it in the pantry?
Our country needs to do that pantry inventory, find what we have available for the kitchen, and get to cooking. A return to old-fashioned morals, work ethic and accountability are ingredients for a return to success.
The fast-food baby syndrome isn't cutting it.
Troy Turner is the editor of The Daily Times and holds a master's degree in history with an emphasis on foreign relations. He can be contacted at P.O. Box 450, Farmington, N.M., 87499; or at tturner@daily-times.com.
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