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In 2007, Franklin Gilliard and his wife, a teacher's aide named Sherry, started their own business: a driving school. Shortly after, they were hit by the recession.

The couple worked hard to stay afloat, but despite their efforts, they found themselves drowning in past-due bills and late notices and became homeless in 2013.

"We had the car repossessors there. We had the bank knocking on the door. You just feel like you're a prisoner in your own home," says Franklin, 46.

"You would never think that that would be your routine — looking out the peephole before you walk outside every day. Now, since that has happened, I can't even hear a knock without my heart jumping," says Sherry, 42.

The couple called the bank to say they needed help with their loan because they started getting behind on the mortgage, but they could not dig themselves out of debt.

"Before you knew it, we were homeless," Sherry says. "I remember going to REI and looking at tents that would hold a family of five. And then I remember at the homeless shelter, when they escorted us to our room, I remember laying on a bottom bunk and looking up at the springs that you look at on a bunk bed. And I remember saying to myself, 'How did I get here?' "

She says living at the homeless shelter caused her some embarrassment, and she would try not to be recognized while they were staying there. For example, when her coworkers would talk about volunteering to feed families at the shelter, she would tell Franklin they couldn't stay for the meal.

"I would tell my husband, 'We cannot be here for Sunday dinner because the colleagues from my job are going to be serving food,' " she says.

Franklin and Sherry now have transitional housing and are working to find a permanent home. Franklin is training to be a certified nursing assistant.

"Now we have at the dinner table the circle of thanks and each one of us go around and we say what we're thankful for. Our boys, they're at the stage in which they're thankful for their Pokemon cards," Sherry says. "But we are thankful that we can come together with our food, with the lights on, with the heat on and knowing that we are there to be blessed to wake up another day."

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Allison Davis and Eve Claxton.

StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.

StoryCorps

The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Bargain hunters heading to Walmart, in addition to looking for holiday deals, may find workers participating in Black Friday Strikes.

Since 2012, Our Walmart, which is an employee labor group, has been staging strikes on the day after Thanksgiving.

Employees at stores in six states and Washington, D.C., plan to participate and more locations are expected to join in.

Our Walmart says it is standing up for better jobs. Members of the group would like to see more full-time work and an hourly wage of $15.

Its website BlackFridayprotests.org is trying to gather momentum for the movement. It also encourages people to participate in the strikes and has information where they can find a protest near them.

The AFL-CIO Tweeted: "Skip shopping and join a #BlackFriday protest in solidarity w/ #WalmartStrikers.

In a statement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, "The entire labor movement will proudly stand with the brave workers at Walmart as they lead the largest mobilization to date for better wages and schedules."

Walmart employs 1.3 million people in the United States. A statement on its website reads: "About 75% of our store management teams started as hourly associates, and they earn between $50,000 and $170,000 a year — similar to what firefighters, accountants, and even doctors make. Last year, Walmart promoted about 170,000 people to jobs with more responsibility and higher pay."

our walmart

walmart

OPEC oil ministers have agreed to keep production levels steady, virtually ensuring continued low prices at the gas pump and lower costs for jet fuel that could translate into cheaper air-ticket prices.

After the decision was announced, crude prices quickly tumbled on the global market. Brent crude droped more than $6 to $71.25 a barrel.

According to The Wall Street Journal, during a meeting in Austria, members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries "agreed to stick to the oil-producer group's existing output target of 30 million barrels of oil a day, a decision that implies it will cut production from recent levels but stops some way short of the action likely required to boost sagging global oil prices.

"Sticking to its current production ceiling of 30 million barrels a day would involve an OPEC supply cut of around 300,000 barrels a day based on the cartel's output in October.

"Oil prices plunged on the news, with Brent crude down 3.2% to $75.26 a barrel."

Crude prices have dropped significantly as stepped-up production in the U.S. and Canada and more fuel-efficient cars have caused output to outstrip demand. China has also taken advantage of low prices to increase its strategic petroleum reserve as a cushion against future oil shocks.

The inability of OPEC to agree to cut production in an effort to stabilize prices was widely expected.

According to Reuters: "Some analysts have said that oil prices could slide to $60 per barrel if OPEC does not agree to a significant output cut. Benchmark Brent futures dropped over $1 on Thursday to $76.28 a barrel, the lowest level since September 2010. U.S. crude also dropped over $1 to a session low of $72.61."

The Russian rouble weakened against the U.S. dollar on the news. Although Russia, a major petroleum exporter, is not a member of OPEC, the organization's decisions have a broad impact on the global industry.

OPEC

gas prices

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British mystery and crime novelist P.D. James, whose best-known works featured poet and Scotland Yard detective Adam Dalgliesh as a protagonist, has died at age 94, her publisher says.

Phyllis Dorothy James, a baroness and award-winning writer of such books as Shroud for a Nightingale, The Black Tower and The Murder Room, was born in Oxford began writing in her late 30s and published her first novel, Cover Her Face, in 1962.

A statement from publisher Knopf quoted Charles Elliott, her longtime editor, as saying: "Phyllis broke the bounds of the mystery genre. Her books were in a class of their own, consistently entertaining yet as well-written and serious as any fiction of our time. She was, moreover, a delight to be around and work with, beloved by readers and her publishers around the world. We will all miss her."

Biography.com says James took up writing as a means to support her family after her husband, a World War II veteran, was incapacitated by mental illness. Cover Her Face was written in the evenings and during her commute to a job in Britain's National Health Service, the website says.

According to Biography.com:

"Dubbed the 'Queen of Crime,' James went on to write 13 more Dalgliesh murder mysteries. Many of them were set in enclosed communities, illuminating the tensions and violence that can erupt amongst tightly knit groups of people. Shroud for a Nightingale, published in 1971, is set at a nursing school, and Original Sin (1994) at a small publishing house in London; Death in Holy Orders (2001) probes the motives behind a killing at a theological college, and the final Dalgliesh mystery, The Private Patient (published in 2008), unfolds at a private plastic surgery clinic in an English manor house."

In 2011, James was interviewed by NPR's Linda Wertheimer for the release of what became her final novel, Death Comes to Pemberley.

"I had this idea at the back of my mind that I'd like to combine my two great enthusiasms," James told Wertheimer. "One is for the novels of Jane Austen and the second is for writing detective fiction."

On the definition of a mystery novel, she said:

"What we have is a central mysterious crime, which is usually murder. We have a closed circle of suspects, with means, motive and opportunity for the crime. We have a detective who can be amateur or professional who comes in rather like an avenging deity to solve it. And by the end, we do get a solution."

British novelists

Mystery novel