There’s a folktale entitled “Stone Soup.”
In my words, some travelers entered a village, hungry and exhausted. They asked the villagers for a bite to eat and were told, “no” time and time again. After leaving with hungry stomachs, they camped right on the edge of the village. From their wagon they brought out a beautiful and shiny pot which they filled with water, adding a stone to the bottom of the pot. They placed the pot on an open fire and waited.
Curious, the villagers began to question what was in the beautiful shiny pot.
Stone Soup was the reply from the travelers each time. The first villager asked if he could taste the soup when it was done. The travelers told him that the soup was missing a garnish that would improve the flavor. The villager asked if he could have some soup if he added carrots to the pot, and the travelers agreed.
Soon after, another villager questioned what was in the pot and, when told it was missing an ingredient, he, too, asked if he could share the soup if he added some meat to the pot. One after one, the villagers added ingredients to the pot until it was a delicious soup.
The travelers admittedly tricked the villagers into feeding them, but everyone ate. Together. They didn’t take the soup and leave because there was enough for everyone. “Stone Soup” is about making something out of nothing, which is a skill that thousands upon thousands of West Virginians have learned.
I know too many West Virginians who live on Stone Soup. “Working poor” has become a catchphrase rather than a paradox. We’ve become complacent and too accepting of bad policies and a system that is designed to keep us undereducated and poor.
There was a single mom whose kids were sick and not able to eat. Worried about dehydration, she headed to the store to buy some popsicles for them. At the checkout she swiped her EBT card to use her SNAP (previously known as food stamps) benefits to pay for them. The woman behind her in line made a comment about how it must be nice to buy junk food and wondered whether the mom had already bought her steak and lobster. Embarrassed and furious, the mom gave the woman the finger as she left the store, and then she cried all the way home.
That single mom was me. Working full-time, volunteering in several capacities, and doing the best I could with what I had, yet I was belittled by a stranger who had no idea whatsoever that I was buying popsicles because I had a sick kid who wasn’t able to keep anything else down. And who knows? Maybe that wouldn’t have mattered.
Too many of us work too hard to be this poor. Wages aren’t allowing us to do more than to scrape by while the cost of housing prevents us from moving to better neighborhoods with better job opportunities. The lack of transportation prevents a lot of us from seeking retail jobs with shift work. The barriers to thriving are seemingly infinite.
Take a look around at where you live and work. Could you get there without a car? Would you be able to afford child care? Could you survive on one income? Pay rent and buy food? Or would you be sitting at the edge of the village eating Stone Soup?
