Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: STRETCH (04/08/21)
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TITLE: STRETCHING AND GROWING THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mariane Holbrook
04/12/21 -
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"What is a moving van doing in front of your house?" asked my friend, Rhoda, who studied the van, then searched my face for an explanation.
"I don't know!" I replied and took off running at break-neck speed toward my house.
Mother was in the kitchen, holding my baby brother, who was crying.
"Oh, honey, come here," Mother called to me, reaching out with one arm to draw me close. "I know this is frightening for you but everything is going to be okay, I promise. When your daddy fell from the engine he was repairing at his job, he broke his back and hasn't been able to work. We got so far behind in our house payments that the bank has taken possession of our house and all the furniture we owned."
I watched in silence as workers removed the dining room chairs and began disassembling the oak table.
Mother continued. "We're going to move next door to Aunt Minnie until we can find a house to rent so you won't have to change schools. Aunt Minnie is collecting furniture for us to use until we can buy some of our own."
I left her side and walked slowly through the house, stunned at how bare everything looked with most of our furniture now stacked in the moving truck out front.
My four older sisters and one older brother had not yet returned from school. I wondered if they knew we had lost our home.
Several neighborhood children had gathered on our front lawn so I woodenly walked over to them and explained what was happening.
"You're moving to Athens?" Rhoda asked, unbelieving.
"But only for a short time," I offered. "We'll be back.
"But not here," Rhoda protested. "This house will be sold by then and you'll be living in a different neighborhood, probably across town.
I'm sure I told my friends goodbye, but I don't remember it. Surely, the bank permitted me to keep my stuffed panda but I don't recall. All I remember is sleeping in a different bed four miles from my home and waking up between two older sisters who told me I had cried all night in my sleep.
At breakfast in our new home, Daddy thanked God for the food, then looked around at his wife and seven children. "I know this is hard but God has never left us before and He won't leave us now. We are just now coming out of the Great Depression where we've learned how to stretch a dollar further than ever before. You older ones have all been a big help, with your paper routes, babysitting jobs, mowing lawns, doing ironing for other families, and working at the diner or the A&P. We'll get through this stronger and better than ever before! Do I hear a loud 'Amen'"?
It must not have been very loud, because he asked the question again.
Mother had already learned how to stretch. She was a master at taking apart a used dress and altering it to fit one of her five daughters.
My older brother looked spiffy in a man's suit she had altered and now fitted my brother perfectly.
My sister wanted a pretty green dress for Easter so Mother accepted a brown dress offered to her by a neighbor and bleached it with Clorox, hoping to find an extra nickel to buy some green Ritz dye. But when she bleached it, the brown disappeared and turned into a beautiful spring green color! She didn't even need the Ritz dye!
Mother had learned to stretch her food dollars to the maximum. Daddy was always inviting strangers at church to come home with us for Sunday dinners, so Mother just added another quart of tomatoes to the tomatoes and dumplings we were having and served smaller pieces of desserts so everyone could have some.
They taught us to stretch our electricity dollars by closing the floor vents to our upstairs bedrooms to conserve heat. We kept warm in winter by sleeping two or three to a bed and placing large, heated stones, wrapped in towels at the foot of our beds.
But two things remained the same: our tithes and our praise. We learned by example to set aside God's tithe first before we stretched everything else to its absolute maximum, and to remember that "In everything give thanks." (1 Thess. 5:18 KJV)
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True story
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