Recession or Depression?

Hey, you guys. Do you think times are tough now? Experts say this is a Recession. Do you know what a Depression is? Have you thought about what it would be like to live through one?

Unemployment today is around 8%, and might be headed for double digits. Unemployment then (1929 to 1940) topped 25% and there were homeless people everywhere. I know. I was there.

Before you get feeling sorry for me and my compadres who lived during those days with me, let me tell you something that may surprise you.

I was better off then than I am now. Of course, understand I was very young, not the responsible person and rather oblivious as to what was going on around me. Thanks to dedicated, loving parents, whose hard work, common sense and God-given good fortune kept them and their family above water during this tough time.

My Father, who drove a truck for an oil company, kept his job throughout the Depression.

My mother, who planted and harvested a huge garden, canning, preserving and giving away the surplus, knew all the tricks to save time, effort and money in cooking, sewing and running a house during hard times.

We lived next to a railroad, which mainly hauled coal and oil from the mines and wells in Southern Illinois to Chicago and from there to all points East and west.

Traveling on those trains as unpaid passengers were many jobless, homeless people, which some people called Hobos or Tramps.

About a mile North of our house was a dense wooded area I'll call Smith's Woods, named after the people who owned the land. Hobos camped out there, as it provided a semblance of shelter and gave them a place to gather, to talk about their problems and hopefully share some food.

My boyhood friends and I used to go to Smith's woods to visit the Hobos, and when we found out they were constantly cooking a big stew over a campfire, we started carrying carrots, potatoes, beans, corn and anything else we could scrounge to the woods to add to their stew.

In today's world, what we did would have been considered the most foolish and dangerous things a child could do. Maybe we were just lucky, but we found these people to be very kind, intelligent and friendly. They appreciated our gifts of food and constantly thanked us for our help.

Very often they would come into town and since our house was on the way, there were constant knocks on our back door from men offering to work for a meal. They helped spade our garden, mowed our yard and swept the driveway-----and my Mother never turned one away without giving him some food.

I'll tell you more about the Great Depression next time I blog. Thanks for reading.

Must Be Something We Don't Get . . . Keith speaks up!

Well, there must be something we don't quite get . . .

Grandchildren living with significant others, some with children - why is it so different today from two generations ago?

Could it possibly be that divorce became too easy? Is it because their parents are divorced? Are they afraid to commit? Does wealth mean more than a loving relationship?

Was it the feminist movement of the 60s when the Pill was created? Should we blame it on Burt Reynolds posing "in the all together" for a feminist magazine?

Could it be because their parents both work?

When we were kids coming home from school, our mothers were at home. At dinnertime we all sat around the table and ate, and discussed the events of the day. Today kids come home , grab something from the freezer, microwave it and eat it at the counter, then dash off to visit friends. They didn't even see their parents, so how can there be bonding?

I worked three jobs in high school just to pay for my first semester at Rose-Hulman. But my mother very rarely worked. Dad was a Mechanic - a fine one - at Marathon Oil in Robinson, Illinois.

Actually, my father, J.D., wanted me to be a Greyhound Bus driver. That would have been a good job! I would have had a uniform, a fine pension and I would have traveled . . . well, all the time!

My better half's mother was almost always at home. She didn't come home to an empty house very often.

Both of us rode bicycles to get around - use of the family car was a very special privilege, only granted when we had been good and they handed you the keys - plus a short lecture:

"Where are you going? Who will you be with? What time will you be home?"

What? Your kids have their own cars?

So, are cars to blame? Do we grant too much freedom without enough supervision? Have we gone too far to reverse our course? Can we bring back family values?

I guess I just don't get it!