This winter has been harsh and brutal with heavy snow and frigid temperatures. Yet, in some sense the weather has been an escape. The white landscape has allowed us some refuge from what increasingly is becoming hard times for almost everyone.

The "economic slowdown" has now become a "severe recession" and most at this stage are worried about a "real depression". When you go into town to the country store or Johnny's Barber Shop all you hear - unless there's a comment about the weather - is how this person lost their job, or how that family is leaving to find work elsewhere. Or how if anyone has any extra food, this family sure could use it.

Even personally I find that what used to be dependable income sources are now shaky and nerve wracking. No one is given a pass on this one. Friends who have given their lives to their companies and peers are out of work for the first time with no real job prospects are in the same boat. Those close to one another are building networks to help each other find jobs or contracts. Even the recessions that I have lived through in my five plus decades have never instilled such fear. People are looking for hope. Obama's election provided them with it and Congress is slowly taking it away from them.

My soul becomes filled with pain when I drive around the Turkey Hollow area and see families leaving their homes. Their goods are piled up on the back of pick up trucks right out of the "Grapes of Wrath". Each time I expect to see "Ma Joad" on the back of the truck as they leave to look for work. Their houses have "For Sale" signs on them due to foreclosures. Often I think of how proud they must have been to have brought their first house, to have fixed it up with individual rooms for the kids and maybe even have attempted a garden or flower bed to show-off a personal touch. How painful it must be for them to leave that place of pride into the unknown. How scared the parents must be as they tell their children that everything will be alright.

Unfortunately, "Ma Joad" is not on the back of the truck. This is not a Steinbeck novel but reality. Can't help but wonder if Washington has any idea of what is happening out here. Forget us country folks -- do they even have an idea of what is happening in New York City with thousands and thousand of white collar jobs disappearing?

The other day I was at my favorite little eating hole joking with my favorite waitress. In came a man dressed in a really good suit, perfect tie, great shoes and trendy briefcase. He opened the case and handed his resume to Kathy and asked if they had any jobs. We could see that he was desperate for work. Of course, there were none at the Grapevine Restaurant and the last I saw of him he was walking into McDonalds with his briefcase in hand.

This is a true story. You can't just can't make up the economic horror that is taking place in America.

In the back of my mind I have this old fashioned belief that America can pull out of this one more time. I just know it. I just hope it isn't blind faith.