Oct. 08, 2001 - 18:56 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Happiness Was There

Now and then some younger person asks me how things were in the depression. My usual answer is in the form of a question, "When you were growing up did you know any poor family, just striving to exist ?" If I am answered in the affirmative, I will then say, "We were all poor and sweating out the next meal, the next rent payment the next pair of new shoes or new clothing with little prospect of things ever getting better.

I have been over this in several directions, but my memory reaches back in a slightly different direction this time.

Holidays and Birthdays.

Kids my age remembered Christmases and Birthdays before hard times lit on our shoulders. The wagons, sleds, windup trains and groups of toys all in one holiday, plus the candy, cake and ice cream, truly we were surfeited but happy.

Jobs disappeared, if our Dads were still working we knew of neighbors whose breadwinners were looking for work. Most of us had listened at table and eavesdropped when our Moms and Dads were trying to figure out a buget that was workable. Most of us kids had radical changes in our diets. Hated meals of beans, pinto beans and that damnable bologna or hot dogs were the norm. If we were lucky there would be a bit of hambone or bacon cooked in with the beans to give a decent taste to them.

Christmas and birthdays our families did the best they could for us kids. For me when my birthday came, I knew it would be a modest one. Maybe several books from Woolworth, some of them having the same character, I remember Bomba The Jungle Boy was one of the series of books. They were cheaply made hardbacks. Maybe a pair or two of socks and a shirt. Of course cards from my parents and our relatives.

Mom and Dad both had to work but when the time came a special effort was made by them, maybe a show at the neighborhood movie house, in nice weather a trip down to the Bredan Tower on Broadway for a double decker ice cream cone, theirs were the best I knew of. Maybe a meal with meat and vegetables other than beans. Somehow Mom would bake a cake and it would make its appearance on the table at the right time.

I think most of us boys were pretty realistic, knew pretty well we were in hard times didn't expect much and didn't moan if there wasn't much.

At Christmas we always had a tree, though it was smaller than before. Mom and Dad had nice ornaments bought before the depression and the tinsel from last year and the year before was brought out, it had been saved, carefully laid out in containers made out of thin bakery pasteboard and was joyfully used to finish off our tree. Part of the Christmas feeling was the smell of evergreen in our house.

As with Thanksgiving Mom and Dad had managed to have enough money for real meat, usually at Christmas it was a big juicy, scrumptious ham, mashed potatoes and gravy (I think my Mom's gravy would make baked pine two by fours taste good). Other vegetables and usually a salad. She had made and stashed cookies to bring out and had managed to buy pfeffernusse at the bakery. There was a nut bowl with different kinds of nuts and Cut Rock candy and delicate ribbon candy.

Mom and Dad would give each other a present, often unobtrusively opened, thanked for with a kiss and laid aside. Of course there was a stocking for me, during those years I pretty well knew what to expect. In the very toe would be the biggest juiciest, tastiest tangerine, several packs of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum (my favorite), a Tootsie Toy car or two and a bunch of hard rock candy of the flavor I liked best. Under the tree usally were books, a few, maybe a top or some inexpensive toy or two and clothes.

I always considered Easter as my parents holiday, their little boy usually would end up with new shoes, shirt, necktie and pants. I was taken over to my cousins house to go to church with them with dire threats of dismemberment if the shoes should get scuffed or grass stains on the knees of the pants. I knew that after Easter those clothes were for good, not just everday stuff. I loved them enough to humor them that day, and tried my best to behave -- some times with a measure of success.

Christmas and Mom or Dad's birthday there would always be something I had made for them. Usually something very amateurish and badly done, the only thing holding it together was my love for my parents. Also a self made card done at school for them.

There was no blowout extravaganza of anything, we had good stuff, just not much of it. But of all the things I remember most fondly was the togetherness, love and always Happiness Was There . . . . . . .

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