On the night of Aug. 21, 2001, my husband and I checked into a motel in Miles City, Mont. Once settled, we poured ourselves a glass of wine and turned on the TV in order to relax after a long day's drive. I've never forgotten that night. It has haunted me ever since.
An economist on the evening news was discussing the economy, then in the midst of a serious slump. The economist looked into the camera and said, "If the American consumer packs it in, the entire global economy is in jeopardy. The American consumer better hang tough or we're in real trouble."
I don't think I had ever before quite understood in such stark terms just what beasts of burden we'd become. What the economist said made me realize something I'd never considered -- that the entire global economy, as he put it, depended on Americans continuing to consume.
Over the years, that phrase -- "the American consumer better hang tough" -- has passed through my mind many times. And, each time, what those words conjure is a great herd of donkeys so loaded down with goods that they're staggering beneath the weight.
Three weeks later, four planes piloted by terrorists flew into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, leaving almost 3,000 Americans dead and the rest of us in shock. The reaction of our president to these events was to advise us to go out and keep shopping -- to continue our "participation ... in the American economy" were his exact words. Not even the worst terrorist nightmare could deter the beasts from being asked to carry more -- hanging tough, in the words of that economist. Not even in the midst of national mourning were we allowed to give our frantic consumption a rest.
I had been in Miles City as part of a trip with my husband through Wyoming, Montana and North and South Dakota. He's a photographer and was taking pictures of thrift stores throughout the West. Thrift stores are where the poorest of the poor do their shopping. Many people rely on the inexpensive, recycled goods just to get by.
Over time, on that trip and others, I've witnessed events in thrift stores that surprised and moved me. The frail, elderly woman, for instance, whom we observed stealing a $2 blouse from a thrift store in Reno by shoving it into her purse. Or the young couple in Jerome, Idaho, who had just gotten married and were carefully picking out plates and silverware, trying to find items that matched.
There was the young man in Butte, Mont., who put $1 down in order to take advantage of a layaway plan and purchase $10 worth of clothes, with a month to pay off his bill. And the father in Winnemucca, Nev., who bought oversized shoes for his boy, even though the dejected kid could hardly walk in them. "They'll last you two years instead of one," the father said encouragingly. "Don't worry, you'll grow into them."
