The Worst of Times
Of course, the early ’30s was when massive unemployment took place and the Depression really hit. My father had a meat and grocery store where the norm was for customers to charge their groceries and pay once a week on payday. Depression laid workers off, meaning they were unable to do so when payment was due, causing the failure of the store. Loss of business meant no income or way to support a family with five children. There was no unemployment compensation. Eviction from the rented apartment soon followed, as rent couldn’t be paid.Through assistance, a roach-infested fourth-floor apartment in neglected condition in one of the poorest sections of the city was available. I can’t imagine the hardships my parents were faced with at that time. Hardships continued for many years with part-time jobs—the Works Progress Administration initiated by President Roosevelt. Hardships continued throughout the ’30s and the beginning of the ’40s.
On Dec. 7, 1941, at the age of 12, while walking I was approached by a frantic newspaperman asking me to hurry down to get newspapers at once. Having sold evening papers on a street corner for a number of years, I wondered why on a Sunday afternoon. They were of course “Extras,” with large headlines stating that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Shouting “Extra, Extra” on Main Street and even selling at 5 cents instead of the usual 2 cents, I kept selling out. I returned home to show my mom how much money I had made, only to find her crying as she listened to the radio with my dad. She knew that my two older brothers who had just finished high school would be called to serve our country.
The war years were difficult as the country prepared for war, including being involved with Japan and Germany. However, patriotism was greater than at any time that I can recall, with women filling in as a workforce, bond drives, kids (including me) collecting scrap metal, and movie theaters playing the national anthem before the film showing while all in attendance were standing.
The Best of Times
My childhood and into my teenage years were good times for our generation. We didn’t have our parents’ worries. We had little and most likely would be considered poor today; however, many of my childhood friends were in the same boat. We had a tightly knit family life, which sadly isn’t seen too often these days. There were pick-up games on Saturdays, following strict but good learning at school. If you misbehaved at school, you dreaded your father finding out—he always said you got what you deserved—and there was respect for authority at all times.The ’40s following the war and the return of my brothers after three years in the Pacific and Europe were good years, and it stayed that way until the start of the ’50s with the Korean conflict—of which it was my turn to be drafted and serve in combat.
Not So Great Times
It’s very difficult to give advice to the present generation. Through no fault of their own, they’ve been exposed from an early age to entitlements, comfort zones, drugs, critical race theory teaching, foul language, transgenderism, pornography, freedom of speech, and a lack of respect for our great country and authority. I pray that a change is coming—and I’m becoming more confident that it is via elections—to right this ship, which is badly in need of it happening.As a grandfather and great-grandfather, may God bless our present generation and our great country.
The 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s
I read the article by Richard Bryant with great interest. He’s 86, and I’m 85, so our lives paralleled each other. I grew up in a small, rural, farm village in upstate New York. It was a wonderful life for a little kid. Every farmer had dogs, so puppies were plentiful. The next-door farmer gave me a puppy when I was 3 years old. My parents said OK, but I had to be responsible for it. What a great learning experience. It’s a shock for me to see puppies sell for more than $2,000 today.I generally agree with everything in the article but would like to add a few points. I don’t remember the ’30s, but the ’40s and ’50s were a great time to be a kid. I played a lot of baseball in my early years; every little town had a baseball team. It was the national pastime. We learned teamwork and how to win and lose gracefully. I had chores to do. Families were encouraged to grow their own vegetables to help the war effort. These were called “victory gardens,” and I was in charge of our family’s garden. I grew carrots, potatoes, corn, and tomatoes. I used to go out in the garden with a salt shaker and eat tomatoes right off the vine. Delicious! Also, the paper boy used to sell war bond stamps. When your stamps totaled $18.75, you could turn them in for $25 after a period of time.
After my chores were done, I would go play baseball with my friends. I had to be home by 6 p.m. because my father got home from work at that time, and the family rule was that we all had to eat together at the kitchen table. We had no TV. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and it was wonderful. She was the greatest mom ever. She and I used to go blueberry picking in the fields together, and we also played a lot of games.
Bryant must have been rich by my standards. He mentions buying school lunches. In my 12 years of public school, I was never able to afford the school lunch. My lunch primarily was a ketchup sandwich that I brought from home. For those who don’t know what a ketchup sandwich is, it’s just what it sounds like: two pieces of bread with ketchup in the middle. I drank a glass of water. Sometimes, the other kids would trade lunches, but no one ever traded with me. As an interesting side note, at my house, tomato juice was a glass of water with a spoonful of ketchup in it.
I had to earn my own spending money; my parents didn’t have any money to spare. I worked on the neighbors’ farms for 50 cents an hour. My jobs were cleaning stables, baling hay, repairing fences, rounding up cows, milking cows, and chopping wood, and I did a lot of babysitting as well. Baling hay was the greatest because it had side advantages. It gave me strong arms, so I won the home run championship in grade school.
We couldn’t afford a TV or phone until the ’50s. Our first phone was a party line with eight families on the same line. You knew who the call was for by the number of rings. For instance, ours was two short rings, our next-door neighbor was a long and a short, and so on down the line. On Friday nights, we would go next door to watch the fights on TV sponsored by Gillette.
I went to college from 1954 to 1958. I graduated with no student debt. Tuition was only $500 per year, and I had an academic scholarship. I also played varsity baseball for four years—no athletic scholarship, but the athletic department gave me a work-study job taking care of the sports fields, putting down lines for the games, cleaning trash after the games, and so forth. I went to college in New Jersey, where the drinking age was 21, so I never had a drink in college. I graduated when I was 20. There were no drugs in high school or college in those days, and I never smoked. Best decision I ever made. Don’t start—it’s the worst thing you can do to your body.
I never had a car in high school or college; I couldn’t afford one. When I graduated from college in 1958, I used my graduation money, $500, to buy a used car. I then got a full-time job. I went into the Army in 1960; the draft existed back then. When I got out of the Army in 1962, I went back to my same job. In 1964, I bought my first brand-new car, a 1964 Plymouth sedan.
There’s no doubt in my mind that this was the best time to be a kid. We had nowhere near the problems kids face today from broken homes, drugs, gangs, and crime. I had a happy childhood. We were lucky!
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