Posted on 02/24/2009 4:31:17 AM PST by Kaslin
An old Spanish proverb says, "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy." I believe that value holds, in or out of a recession. And seeing as my 87-year-old mother lived through the Great Depression, I think her value (and that of those like her) will increase through these tough economic times because her insider wisdom can help us all.
Mother was about 10 years old when her eight-member family endured the thick of those recessive days in rural Wilson, Okla., which only has a population of 1,600 today. The recurring droughts across the heartland during that period dried up the job market, making it worse in the Midwest than it even was in the rest of the country. Over the years, my grandpa worked multiple jobs, from the oil fields to the cotton fields, and he was even a night watchman. The family members did what they could to contribute, but most of them were simply too young to play a major part.
In 1933, when President Franklin Roosevelt took office, his administration, through the Works Project Administration, brought about the employment of millions in civil construction projects, from bridges to dams to airports to roads. My grandfather traveled about 90 miles for a day's work to help build the Lake Murray dam. But with a far smaller ratio of jobs to potential laborers, if Grandpa worked five days a month (at $1.80 a day), it was a good month.
Like most families, my mother's family didn't have running water or electricity. And Granny did her best to keep the outhouse clean, with Grandpa helping by regularly depositing lye to control the odors. (You can imagine how the hot, humid Oklahoma summers turned that outside commode into one smelly closet-sized sauna.) A "scavenger wagon" came by once a week and cleaned out the hole, which had a small chairlike contraption over it with the center punched out. (They once had a two-seater in there, which allowed for two people to enjoy each other's company and conversation. Mom told me that she always felt a little upper-class when she sat with someone else!) By the way, and I'm not trying to be crude, toilet tissue wasn't around, so they used pages from Montgomery Ward catalogs (and you wondered why the catalogs were so thick). No joke -- they preferred the non-glossy pages. I'll let you figure out why.
Got the picture? With that in mind, I turn to a recent conversation I had with my mother. I asked her, "How would you encourage the average American to weather the economic storms of today?"
Here's her advice, in her words:
--"Get back to the basics. Simplify your life. Live within your means. People have got to be willing to downsize and be OK with it. We must quit borrowing and cut spending. Be grateful for what you have, especially your health and loved ones. Be content with what you have, and remember the stuff will never make you happy. Never. Back then, we didn't have one-hundredth of what people do today, and yet we seemed happier than most today, even during the Great Depression.
--"Be humble and willing to work. Back then, any work was good work. We picked cotton, picked up cans, scrap metal, whatever it took to get by. Where's that work ethic today? If someone's not being paid $10 an hour today, they're whining and unwilling to work, even if they don't have a job. The message from yesteryear is don't be too proud to do whatever it takes to meet the financial needs of your family.
--"Be rich in love. We didn't have much. In fact, we had nothing at all, compared to people today, but we had each other. We were poor, but rich in love. We've lost the value of family and friends today, and we've got to gain it back if we're ever to get back on track. If we lose all our stuff and still have one another and our health, what have we really lost?
--"Be a part of a community. Today people are much more alone, much more isolated. We used to be close with our neighbors. If one person had a bigger or better garden or orchard, they shared the vegetables and fruits with others in need. Society has shifted from caring for one another to being dependent upon government aid and welfare. That is why so many today trust in government to deliver them. They've forgotten an America that used to rally around one another in smaller clusters, called neighborhoods and communities. We must rekindle those local communal fires and relearn the power of that age-old commandment, 'Love thy neighbor.'
--"Help someone else. We never quit helping others back then. Today too many people are consumed with their own problems and only helping themselves. 'What's in it for me?' is the question most are asking. But back then, it was, 'What can I do to help my neighbor, too?' I love Rick Warren's book 'The Purpose Driven Life,' and especially his thought, 'We were created for community, designed to be a blessing to others.' Most of all, helping others gets our minds off of our problems and puts things into better perspective.
--"Lean upon God for help and strength. We didn't just have each other to lean on, but we had God, too. We all attended church and belonged to a faith community. Church was the hub of society, the community core and rallying point. Today people turn to government the way we used to turn to churches. It's been that way ever since Herbert Hoover's alleged promise of a 'chicken in every pot' and President Roosevelt's New Deal. Too many have abandoned faith and community. We trust in money more than God. And maybe that's a reason why we're in this economic pickle."
Now that's conventional wisdom that should be shouted and posted in every corridor of government, every community across America, and every blog on the Internet.
Call me overly pragmatic, but I think a little practical wisdom and encouragement is what we all need about now. Mom always was good for that. She still is.
Actually, I live next door to the HOA president and his wife says if things get real bad, the chicken rules are GONE. Most of the other rules are already unenforced.
There are subdivisions like that around here, but mine is not one of them. Of course, if the homeowners voted to raise livestock, then the bylaws could be amended.
Our bylaws are written so that the vote has to be 3/4 of the homeowners plus one to change anything. There are 360 houses. Ninety of them are owned by one man, and he rents it out as subsidized housing for a tax break. Even if we could get every other homeowner on board for anything, that ONE MAN has veto power. This makes the houses virtually unsaleable and the neighborhood is becoming rental property. Those ninety houses were not there when I bought in - the grading was just starting, and the realtor showed me the plat with the tennis courts, community center and swimming pool clearly marked. Those amenities never materialized, we got the SH instead and all the problems that go with it. NOT a happy camper.
Well, that stinks. Although it won’t seem like much if you have to start raising chickens and turnips in the yard. We have about 275 houses, and a preponderance of resident owners.
bttt
Add this to your list: people didn’t feel as poor because everyone around them was poor. My mother (born in the 1940s) talks about this. They had nothing, but no one else did either, so they didn’t really feel bad.
Never in all of history do we have visions of ‘wealth’ thrown at us constantly via the media. Many people feel poor, even if we are not.
Count me in there. I wouldn't have a clue, and I live in a suburb.
I live in a suburb, too. We have lots of Boy Scouts camp equipment, so we could at least cook what’s in our freezer, but if we woke up tomorrow in 1920’s conditions, it would get difficult very quickly.
My grandmother went from wealth to pennies during the last go round. The adjustment was hard (running water and power to an outhouse), but they did it and recouped.
First trick is to decide to survive. Most people in such situations collapse mentally, and then perish. My grandpa lived in a rail road car, my other grandparents as hired labor on local farms.
As to taxes and such, good luck enforcing them.
That's really a key - and that's what seems to be missing when people say, "Oh, you can't get a job, $10 an hour isn't enough, etc." $10 an hour wouldn't support my family (11 people), but if it put one's days food on the table, as opposed to having nothing, you bet we'd take it. A family in my Girl Scout troop has been unemployed for three months, and the father is collecting scrap metal and selling it to dealers all over the area.
One of my friends at church was very rich in Spain before the socialist government took over: she was a professional musician, and her husband was a surgeon. They ended up with nothing, living in a one-bedroom apartment in suburban Charlotte, where our pastor had paid the deposit and given them a used car. She told me, "I've had everything, and now I have nothing but my faith and my family and friends. Every day I wake up alive (she's in her late 70s) is a gift."
Come to KY.
After the last ice storm and 600K without power we have a couple of decades of free firewood waiting for someone to cut and haul.
My mother (born in 1921) did feel poor, because she said that they were surrounded by images of wealth in the movies and newspapers. Hollywood stars were very glamorous and their lives were often photographed, just as they are today. Movies showed Great Gatsby-like mansions of unbelievable opulence, beautiful cars, women wearing satin, pearls, and furs.
The difference is that no one they saw regularly in their own lives was like this. It just seemed as much of a fantasy as Star Wars is to us. So there was little resentment among ordinary working Americans. All they aspired to during the Depression was food, clothing, a place to live, and maybe someday a radio. A young couple newly married would try to rent a room rather than buy a $500,000 house.
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