ROGERS: Hunger hits hard during holidays

This week, many of us will gather with family and friends to feast, imbibe deeply the warm comforts of convivial joy. We are at the cusp of our holiday revelries that begin with Thanksgiving and end with New Year hangovers.

November has always been a sentimental time for my family. My dad, ever the nostalgic soul, commences our annual trip down "memory lane" by calling more often, beginning his conversations with, "Do you remember when …?" and encouraging my sister and I to hold firm to family lore.

This year, however, his enthusiasm for conversation has been amplified by technology. My dad, once critical of cell phones and the daily interruptions they cause, bought a Blackberry. While learning all the features of his new "communication hub" as he calls it, Dad has called every day for the last two weeks.

"This thing has a great speaker phone," he said yesterday. "I'm talking to you and cooking salmon. Do you remember that time we ate at Victoria Station?"

In the 1980s, my dad worked for a medical company that gave its sales representatives generous expense accounts so they could woo surgeons and specialists. He ate well then, and he didn't hesitate to share his new culinary experiences with his children. We too ate at Victoria Station, a small, upscale restaurant chain in Northern California.

We could tell the difference between chocolate pudding and chocolate mousse — quite an epicurean accomplishment for a couple of lower-middle class kids from the suburbs.

At the height of our culinary exploration, however, Mom and Dad divorced. My sister and I, with our mother, went from chateaubriand to tuna casserole. I remember this transition mostly because I was the only kid at school who read Food & Wine magazine. My taste buds recoiled with horror as I choked down Kraft macaroni and cheese, as I longed for the béchamel sauces of the past.

My mother was a staff member at a university then and began each day with a commute. I was a "latch-key kid" and spent my afternoons at home alone. I tried to keep up the culinary enthusiasm we once had by cooking so Mom wouldn't have to when she returned, but our pantry didn't have much beyond canned soups, fruits and vegetables and dried pastas.

Back then I didn't understand the difference between middle class and working poor. I also didn't know we were, by government standards, living below the poverty line. All I knew was that our lives had changed. Mom often cried while balancing her checkbook and paying the bills, and I missed my dad.

He wasn't rolling in money, either. His job had changed. The expense account was gone. Traveling the length of the Pacific Coast from his home base in the Silicon Valley, he eventually took a job in Oregon. When that company downsized, he took a job in Colorado.

I remember spending a Christmas with him, the Charlie Brown-inspired Christmas tree, how he tried to make magic happen for his kids but couldn't. His pantry wasn't any better than Mother's. It, too, seemed meager.

My parents, hardworking folks who had come to California from a small Wyoming town, were proud people. They didn't complain much — though both had a lot of negative things to say about President Jimmy Carter and seemed to love Ronald Reagan. They didn't wallow around in self-pity or ever let on that things were as bad for us as they truly were.

My mother often charged groceries on her gas card, buying whatever she could find at a gas station market that could keep us fed until payday. She never let on how close we were to going without. She did whatever she could to make my sister and I feel secure.

My mother was stoic in the face of adversity, and we never discussed money. Never. And my father never let on how miserable his working life was or how often he sat perched precariously between a paycheck and unemployment. We simply muddled through, did the best we could and talked about "Someday."

"Someday," my mother said, "we won't have to worry so much."

"Someday, Kiddo," my dad said, "life will be so good it'll knock your socks off."

What I didn't know then that I know now is that the shortage of fresh vegetables and fruits in our house, the lack of nutritionally sound, healthy foods, was a symptom of what the government terms "food insecurity."

All I remember about fresh vegetables and fruits was how enthusiastic I became when I saw apple slices or oranges in my lunch the school provided. Considering that fact that I grew up in California, one of the world's best agricultural producers, it's amazing to me to think my mother had to work so hard to get so little.

Today, my family is doing well. My mother has a great job at that same university. My dad is self-employed, an inventor. My sister is a mother, raising her own brood, and I, well, I'm a mom putting herself through school.

But there are many in Nebraska who, like my parents once did, face food insecurities and shortages. There are many good, proud working families who can't guarantee they will have anything in their pantries at the end of the month. Last year, for example, the Matt Talbot Kitchen served 105,702 nutritious meals to the working poor and homeless in Lincoln. The Food Bank of Lincoln, which provides temporary assistance to 16 southeast Nebraska counties, relies on donations to help Nebraskans. The Peoples' City Mission and Catholic Social services also rely on the generous support of those who donate.

But this year, at a time when Nebraskans need help most, when the economy has hurt so many, there is a shortage of food, money and supplies. These agencies have always counted on the holiday giving cycle to support year-round assistance for the poor. It seems, looking at the need, the news stories, that those of us who can need to help.