This is an original piece written for the Grapes of Wrath Song-Cycle. Perhaps relevant to today’s political climate.

Emma Virginia Alderman is the most overprotective mother in the world.
I believe in many ways the changes our country is going through have influenced her life
and caused her to be an overprotective mother.
She reminds me of a mother hen protecting her baby chicks from all the un-natural elements. Yet occasionally she exposes her children to the forgotten ways of life, telling them of the struggles she went through….
Born July Twenty-second Nineteen-thirty-two during the Great Depression…
The thirties were the worst time for growing up.
She remembered at six years old her mother being too proud to stand in government bread lines to receive bags of rice and meat. As a child she knew how tough times affected her family. Her father once employed by Western Union as a telegrapher, lost his job. Then her family moved from several apartments struggling through the depression.
At nine years old she raised her brother and two sisters because her parents were out looking for jobs that were scarce.
In Nineteen-forty-one while living in a government project a newspaper boy came running through the neighborhood shouting “extra, extra, Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor!”

Later, not sure what was happening she sensed that a transition from hard times to a more promising time began with a promise from Franklin Delano Roosevelt saying:
“Two chickens in every pot…
Two chickens in every pot”.
She thought the president saved the world.”

I have included FLAC file - also have WAV file if anyone wants - please email me…since there is some slight distortion in the mp3.