Dec. 23, 2001 - 13:02 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Knew The Difference

I remember some fun, fascinating Christmases, up through my seventh year. I saw what family life was like when there was enough. And when I was eight years old in 1929 my world truly did turn upside down.

After the stock market crash and the ensuing depression, I ate, was clothed and shod and my school supplies bought. But I lived with the fear that my Dad and Mom could get laid off and we would have no family in the country to take us in on the farm. That seemed to me to be about the only way people could be warm, fed and comfortable during those times. School would let out for the summer and friends who were there when school let out were fewer in number, most of them back to relatives on the farms.

So the lack of goodies was very apparent to me and I realized that it wasn't just my parents treating me badly, there just wasn't much most of the average working man or woman could do about the situation. Relief was no answer either, especially to people who were as independant as most families were.

My clothes were replaced before my hind end and knees hung out after having been mended and remended till that wouldn't work and shoes replaced only when the toes of the ones I was wearing let the cold water in. But all us kids were in the same boat really. Sure there were kids in the ritzy part of town who didn't know the word depression or deprivation, but we knew.

The thing that bugged me the most was our diet. Beans and weeneys, weenys and beans and for Sunday breakfast maybe fried bologna and beans with a bit of toast. Mom and Dad allowed me to drink coffee, heavily lightened with milk primarily because coffee was cheaper.

I didn't like it but many of my friends weren't as lucky as I, so I just lived it and hoped for better times.

My Dad tried to explain why there was such a thing as a depression. One thing I did understand was that if you bought on margin and the stock went lower you had to immediately cover yourself or go totally broke - depending on the amount of shares you held. Many people had gone deeply into the market and lost all, some just lost a bunch but unfortunately those who held no shares were hurt just as deeply in the long run I think.

That more or less was a little satisfaction for my curiosity. But my mind resolutely refuses to understand the rest of it other than maybe we as a nation lost confidence in ourselves and lost all optimism. There was the machinery and the factories there, the farms were still there, the workers were there. I am not an economist nor do I want to be. All their ideas seem to clash, radically. So, all I know is that we had one.

After the depression all kinds of controls and laws were hung on to the stockmarket, which seemed to work. Yet in recent times I have seen the market rise most every day and wondered when the ski run downhill would happen.

I don't think the media and some of our people in our goverment help things along either. Looks to me that the, "sky is falling," ploy with the media jumping on top of it with both big feet are exacerbating the condition immensly. Are we going to let ourselves buy into that ? Are we going to spend ourselves silly trying to up the economy as true patriots as the biggies say we are supposed to do ? In a way it makes me think of some of the dirt/cinder track motorcycle races I used to watch. One thing those riders had was a steel bottomed shoe on the foot toward the center of the arena. When they went into a turn you could see the sparks fly as that shoe hit the cinders. But I don't see a steel shoe on any of the riders in our situation.

Then ironically about the time we were gradually coming out of the depression we were at war. Men going overseas, materiel and foodstuff also. Rationing here, a time when many families learned to buy oleomargarine and the bags of yellow coloring and mix it up to make it look like butter. Learned how to keep runs in the car to just the necessities, how to watch how we treated our shoes. It was a time when household appliances weren't being made and vehicles were being made for the military only. Yet today I still wonder how we had all that damn money to make the warships, tanks, ordnance, guns and aircraft and the pay to send men over there to be killed and maimed. Something here will never fly right to me. The wastefulness of war. Again, there is a victor but truly nobody wins, the losses are just a little less for the victor.

I think yet today here in our country there are some of us who have never been out of the depression and I mean people who work hard and diligently and yet can barely feed and clothe a family. There is a fancy title hung on such a thing, a euphemism, "The Working Poor," the title is hung and the situation is supposed to go away, yeah riiiight !

Now there are more and more people going homeless through no fault of their own and the facilities to house and feed them have not been enlarged to handle it. And they are still talking a tax cut for the wealthy and corporations ? Sheesh.

Back at the ranch, we boys knew what hard times were, accustomed ourselves to the situation and made do with what we had. Making our own amusements from things out of trashcans in the allies, inventing games that didn't take equipment or accessories and playing the games taught us by our parents like Five Hundred Rummy and Solitaire. Those of my age or older remembered how things once were and hoped to see things ease up a bit.

We Knew The Difference . . . . . . . . .

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