I’m sitting here at the shop, watching through the window as the power company guy wanders the neighborhood hanging disconnect notices on businesses doors. I suppose there might be a recovery going on somewhere but I’m not seeing much of it here. My landlord has nine business spaces to rent..at this moment five are empty with no signs of that changing in the near future. Tough times, man.
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Here’s a link I’ve been sitting on for a while. ( Be prepared to spend an hour or so going through all these…it’s pretty compelling stuff.) It’s first-hand memories of the first Great Depression. In many of the memories there are some parallels to today’s experiences, but many make today’s situations look extravagantly luxurious. There are very few memories of violence or crime. However, two did jump out at me:
Different time, different people. Definitely a different attitude towards work, charity (giving and receiving it), family obligation and duty. Go read, it’s interesting stuff. It certainly makes you feel that, thus far, things are a lot better now than they were then.
My Mom and Dad grew up in the Depression. I remember her telling how her family of 5 people had 25 cents as the only money in the house. My Grandfather and my two Uncles (Ages 12 & 14) made the 25 cents by shoveling snow all day one winter.
She grew up in Chicago and at age 7 witnessed one bootlegger slit the throat of another bootlegger over a corner spot to sell home made booze. She cried then she told me this in her 40′s. Now people just steal Tide.
My dad and grand dad were both Dustbowl sharecroppers. There was nothing to steal from them. Shacks insulated by newspaper; no light or electricity, and the only heat was from a coal oil stove (coal oil was abundant and cheap). If you could get your cotton, peanuts, or watermelon to grow, you still went hungry. The produce pays the rent. You grind up the peanut vines to add to flour and maybe trade a few bags of peanuts for some eggs. Add a couple of squirrels from the treeline at the back of the pasture and you might do okay. If the dust storms or starvation took the mule, you ate that too; fed, but sad that plowing was going to be harder this year.
I don’t believe war is a good thing, but sometimes a necessary. And hope came in the form of a war. Fighting for Uncle Sam meant food, clothing, and money. And after the war, it meant a good education and a job.
Odd that we are of German heritage; nearly perished over here, but almost certainly would have there.
Remember the best way to control people is through control of their food. Stalin did this in the Ukraine. His goons, the Village Police were provided with food, firearms and Vodka.
Just finnished reading some of these and I’m stunned. As a kid growing up in the 50′s and 60′s I got sick of hearing about The Depression from my folks, now I wish there were here so I could thenk them for all that they taught me.
If you want to get good and depressed I recommend “The Worst Hard Time.”
Sinclair Lewis wrote a book about life in the Chicago stockyards during the Depression called “The Jungle”. Although it openly promoted Socialism, it captured a life of horror from that era.
Read it. Him and Studs Terkel can’t say enough nice things about FDR.
We are all just a bunch of pussies.
Seems like it some days, don’t it? We’re in a society that doesn’t blink at paying five bucks for a cup of fancy coffee and it was only two generations ago folks were eating stuff we’d throw out when we clean our fridges. Reading stuff like that helps me keep perspective and, more importantly, keeps from doing grossly stupid things with money.
Here’s a couple more:
http://smithsk.com/history_great_depression.htm
http://smithsk.com/history_great_depression2.htm
Only one recollection of theft – fairly minor at that.
Thanks Zero, just finished, good stuff.
The Jungle was written by Upton Sinclair in 1905, well before the Depression.
It’s Marxist propaganda. Its chief value is to provide insight into the mindset of those who believe that you owe them your wealth and property simply because you have it and they want it.
Have you read “The Grapes of Wrath”? I kept thinking of how many themes it shared with post-apocalypse novels.
I think I saw the movie, but its been a while.