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Not-so-great depression
Lots of people still call that thing we had in 1929 and the early 30s a depression, but I've always figured it was a panic. Young people under 25 don't know anything about it, but I'm telling you it was a bad thing! Big businessmen were jumping off of tall buildings. Poor people couldn't afford to jump on account of their families didn't have the money for a funeral. Nobody starved While it was bad, I don't remember hearing of anybody starving to death. I did see one family living in an improvised tent and they were boiling a rabbit in a pot in the front yard. They couldn't fry the rabbit, they said, because they didn't have any lard. I remember hearing a man tell how they had dried peas for dinner and supper and for breakfast they made patties out of what was left and fried them in sowbelly grease. Actually, he was bragging about having sowbelly, which lots of people didn't have. This fellow belonged to the upper class. It always seemed mighty silly to me to see a person jump off of a tall building because he was afraid he was going to lose his fortune. If I'm ever faced with the possibility of losing what little I've accumulated, I'm certainly not going to throw in my life too. Debt sometimes causes people to commit suicide. I've always figured that if there's any suicide committing on account of my debts, the fellow I owe can do it. He has more to worry about than I have. People were happy In spite of all the hardships that accompanied the depression, though, one thing stands out in my mind very clearly, and that was the happiness among the people. Folks, who had no idea where their groceries for the next week would come from, actually laughed and joked about their predicament. In-laws moved in and several families would live in the same house and they all seemed to be happy. There was mighty little to argue about because nobody had anything. It's the only thing that everybody kept up with the Jones' and the reason for that was the Jones' were busted too. Children nowadays spend as much in one day on ice cream, soft drinks, gasoline and rockola machines as an entire family spent back then in a week for the bare necessities of life. Of course, children have a heap more fun now, especially at Christmastime. It was mighty hard for a kid to get real jubilant over two pieces of rock candy, a small apple and a sack full of hickory nuts. Bumper crops Like I said, nobody got hungry that I know of, mainly because during the depression years it seems we had the biggest crop of sweet potatoes ever grown. The sorghum crop was good, too. I never got tired of sweet potatoes and molasses, although I never eat either of them now. What I'm doing is just laying off of 'em so they'll taste good again in case we have another depression. On Sundays we generally had something extra, like newground turnips and cold coon, with delicious rabbit salad.
There are people who seem to want another depression. They say people would be happier and wouldn't live in a continuous rush all the time.
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