Not long ago, someone in my presence voiced the question: “What is this world coming to?”

That, in itself, was not uncommon, but it did make me think of a like situation in a former century now more than 20 years past.

What was an 11-year-old child of those days supposed to do when her worry was: “Is the world coming to an end?” 

There was something distressing “going on” – World War II – and it was setting everyone on end.

In the years to come, it was often referred to as those “terrifying days.” And, many questions remained unanswered because, although solutions were sought, no readily useful answers were found available.

It seems each of us can still wrestle with opportunities to judge the need for answers.

During one of those long-ago years – 1942 to be exact – I was a little farm girl worrying about where life was leading me. It hadn’t seemed very kind to me and my parents.

Commonly classed as transient renters, we moved often, from farm to farm.

Grown-ups of that era often found themselves lacking the power necessary to overcome problems challenging them at every turn.

I didn’t have the toys other kids seemed to have, and I complained often, obviously too often.

That usually earned me additional chores. I quickly learned there was little value in complaining, but, none-the-less, I had my days.

At age 11, I began to abandon my usual playtime interests to listen to radio broadcasts featuring the adventures of popular renowned heroes and other persons of notable actions.

There were several such programs every day, with secret code messages included.

I had to rush home from school every day to enter those into the “magic decoder” I’d acquired through the mail for 25 cents and a box top from a popular cereal.

I didn’t particularly like the cereal, but a small bowl suddenly appeared in our home bearing the imprinted likeness of once-child-star Shirley Temple, and mom revealed she had “bought it ‘specially’” for me. 

I never said anything to her but figured she should’ve asked first if I’d wanted it. I’d have saved her money and skipped all the wear and tear on my nerves.

The cats didn’t like the cereal either, and I’d been encouraging them to eat the leftovers, soaked with cow’s milk.

The bowl must have cost mom a bundle the way she fussed every time she found it rolling around on the porch or in the yard.

That the cats were being fed, was conditionally accepted; but I had to pick up the bowl every time they finished… dumb cats.

There always seemed to be something “going against my grain,” weekly, if not daily.

Life occurred at its own speed, and certainly never the way I wanted it to.