I thank U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins for voting in favor of restoring the extended unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless.

I’m retired now and I manage to get by, but I remember how it was at a time in my life when I had a family to support and I lost my job. I still had to provide a place to live and the bare essentials to live.

We simply don’t realize how it is to be without income until it happens to us.

I deeply appreciate the senators’ positive vote.

Lou Giard, Turner