Sunday, March 8, 2009

Recession Decession Depression

A trip down memory lane, but they're not my memories. As the economy is in collapse, and no one really knows what's going to happen next, I've been pondering the lives of my parents. John was born in 1905, Ethel in 1910. Mom was 23 when they married, Dad was 28. During the big depression in the 30's, when no jobs were available, only one member of the household could hold a job. Mom had a great job at Beneficial Life Insurance Company, Dad drove a taxi and earned about $15.00 a month, so they drove to Grantsville to get married and didn't tell anyone, because one of them would have lost his/her job, most likely my mother, who earned a bit more than my dad. No one could afford housing, so Mom and Dad lived with my aunt and uncle, and they all shared the rent. Of course, my grandfather also ran the candy company, and the family had to help out there as well. My Aunt Ruth had been a sickly fragile child who had Rheumatic Fever, which left her with a weakened heart. She worked the candy counter at Keith O' Brien's downtown. My mom would leave Beneficial Life on her lunch hour to work the candy counter so my Aunt Ruth could have a lunch break. Everyone pulled together to help each other, because everyone was in the same economic crisis. They shared, they learned to make do, they learned how to save, how to decide priorities, what was important, and what their values needed to be to survive, to make sure their loved ones survived.
Here in America, I think we got used to excess, wealth and abundance, greed and corruption. Many of us have been wondering how long things could go on the way they were, and now we see some of the results of our misplaced priorities. We don't know how long things are going to go downhill, and we don't know what personal sacrifices we are going to have to make. Once again, we'll need to dig down and find our values, make decisions based on what is right and how we can help. We'll have the human tendency to cry "Foul", so see that life is not fair. But in the end, it all comes down to wanting our families to be safe and warm, with enough food to eat, and a roof over our heads. In the Great Depression, those things might even have been luxuries. This is the "Rainy Day" we've all been warned about. We don't know when the sun is coming out again, but we know it is there, overhead, even if we can't see it. We know that "This too shall pass". And maybe in the process we will remember compassion and kindness, and we'll remember what is truly important. Maybe we'll remember that people are more important than things.

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