I can’t remember a time when I’ve heard so much fear and anger. I overhear it in restaurants, at the pool and at the mall. It’s more widespread than class warfare or race warfare, in other words, it’s everywhere.

“Why,” I hear over and over, “when I’ve done everything right, do I have to mortgage my future with a huge national debt for greedy companies and people who lived beyond their means and bought houses they couldn’t afford? It’s my tax dollars that are going to bail them out and I’m sick of it.”

Americans have been on a spending spree for way too long – it was a bubble that had to burst. The rate of savings in our country was less than 1 percent. Less than 1 percent! I can’t even imagine not having money in savings long before purchasing that flat-screen TV.

But then, I’m from that generation that didn’t use credit much. I’m not old enough to have lived through the Great Depression, but I’m old enough to have absorbed the lessons of those who did.

My husband, Larry, has a saying I’ve heard time and again, “The one thing I know about hard times is that they’re coming.” Which is why we don’t drive financed cars nor have credit card debt. Which is why we live in affordable housing with great comfort but little expense, and which is why we’ll be able to tighten up even more when inflation inevitably hits.

But, we are where we are and there’s no going back. What occurred to me was that there’s a lot of older folks with a lot of survival knowledge, and I’ll bet they’d be willing to share if there’s anyone interested.

How about some get-togethers? How about some meetings where we care and share? How about learning from the experience of others?

We can never go back to living on credit, and we’re going to have to learn to live with higher prices from groceries to cars. Maybe my generation can help.

Hey, I’ve got a great recipe for stone soup.

Reach Aubunrn resident Karen Shepherd at karen.shepherd@rocketmail.com.