In contemplating a title for this article, I could very well have lifted a line from a beloved old Grateful Dead song, Truckin’.  “What a long, strange trip it’s been” surely describes my life.  For the most part, it’s been a good life.   For everything that I have put into it and everything that I have gotten out of it, my life seemed to be headed in a certain direction — until I reached my golden years.  That’s when it turned strange.

Growing up in South Philadelphia with my two brothers during the Great Depression, the life lessons learned in my youth held me in good stead as I matured, carving the path that my life has taken.  Hard work and honesty were the cornerstones of my family.  Like most traditional families of those times, my father was the breadwinner, and my mother was the heart and soul of our household.   My dad worked long hours in my grandfather’s barbershop while my mother did the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, and nearly every other household chore, including the most important one: the majority of the child-rearing.   My brothers and I pitched in to help whenever we could.  Back then, when the unemployment rate had skyrocketed to 25%, it took teamwork to get by as well as maintain our sanity.

We may not have been rich, but we were happy.  Simple, inexpensive outings, such as a trip down the river on the Wilson Line or hiking in the Wissahickon Park provided my family with downtime as well as quality time, in which we strengthened our bonds and celebrated being alive.  I remember those times with great fondness, as I do playing stickball and other games in the street along with the neighborhood kids.  Somebody’s mother or grandmother was always peering down upon us, making sure that we were safe and causing no major mischief.  If we were the cause of any trouble, may heaven have helped us as those watchful eyes would report back pronto to our parents, who then doled out appropriate punishments.

Back then, there was no such thing as a Time Out to curtail the behavior of unruly children.  There was no such thing as withholding television from us for our minor sins, because TV had yet to be invented!   There was no such thing as “reasoning” with us or facilitating the development of our “critical thinking skills” that would enable us to see the error of our ways.  In those days, parents had neither the time not the inclination for such approaches.  They were engaged in the very serious task of keeping the roof over their kids’ heads and food in their mouths.  The ideology behind “Spare the rod and spoil the child” was not a philosophy in my house; it was a way of life.   My brothers and I quickly learned that things could be a lot more pleasant if we followed our parents’ rules and mores, including respect for others.

As the years passed, my brothers and I were able to help the family in a monetary fashion.  After-school jobs, such as serving as delivery boys for local grocers, working newspaper routes, or clerking in stores allowed us to chip in a bit at home while still enjoying a little “blow money.”

At age the age of sixteen, we traded our short pants for long ones, for that was the mark of a boy coming of age.  Many of us came of age a lot faster than we’d bargained for, courtesy of World War II.   Two years after I’d begun to wear men’s clothing, I traded those clothes for a military uniform, at the command of the United States Army.

After the war, those lucky enough to return home attempted to recapture the years lost in the conflict by trying to meld back into civilian life.  But we were forever changed, as was the nation.  When the war ended, so did the jobs that supplied the war, mostly in manufacturing.  Because there were not enough jobs for the returning troops, many veterans took advantage of the G.I. Bill: a piece of legislation enabling vets to attain college educations or learn one of the trades by way of vocational schools.  With our newfound knowledge, we moved into decent-paying jobs, jobs that helped make our country the most economically sound nation in the world.

In the years to follow, we left our homes and the sheltering arms of our parents.  We began our own lives with the girls of our dreams.  Shortly afterward, we experienced the joys and responsibilities of raising our own families and understood, finally, our parents’ perspectives.   We worked, and we worked hard.  We put away for our retirement, to be able to enjoy our golden years with our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  Never did we expect to find ourselves in a situation tottering too close for comfort to the same one we’d experienced as kids growing up in the Great Depression.  At least, I didn’t.

Now that I am a senior citizen, I am floored, dismayed, and disheartened by what I see, and I feel that I speak for many people of my generation.  We served our country; we worked within the system and paid into the system.  We had assumed that our honest and industrious work ethic would bear fruit, for it is karmic law that what you give out, you receive back.  We did not expect to lose our shirts when the stock market crashed nearly two years ago. We did not anticipate that our government would blithely fork over $710 billion in aid – not to a needy working class, but to the elite: those who own and run huge mega-million dollar corporations.

These events have left senior citizens up the creek without a paddle.  On fixed incomes, we must juggle the costs of necessities against the ever-rising cost of living.  In addition to food, shelter (including the utilities and appliances and everything else within those shelters), and of course, clothing, we must – by law – carry insurance on our cars and perhaps in the near future, our health.

Over and over, my mind spins with questions of how my dad managed just the basics on the salary he earned.  We owned no car.  Our home was not air conditioned, nor did it boast a hot water heater, a dryer, a dishwasher, or other modern-day amenities.  And yet, we still enjoyed life to the fullest.  As President George H.W. Bush recalled the era he lived in, “Life was simpler and kinder then.”  Where did we go wrong?  Is overindulgence the “reward” we must now reap?

If only we seniors could return to those carefree days of childhood.  Until someone constructs a time machine, that’s not going to happen.  For now, here is another hard to believe fact that seniors must swallow.  Although the estate tax for 2010 is zero, it will climb to 55% in 2011!  If you are interested in cashing in on some savings, please refer to my article on this site entitled, Single Shot 45.

I suppose the plight of the Over the Hill Gang can best be summed up in a song.  We’re not talking about the Grateful Dead anymore; we’re talking about an artist of my generation.  We’re talking about Frank Sinatra’s, The September of My Years:

One day you turn around and it’s summer.

The next day you turn around and it’s fall.

And all the springs and winters of a lifetime

Whatever happened to them all?

Adopted by individual voters and political groups alike, the term “shovel ready” graphically illustrates our national chomping at the bit to get off the unemployment line and start earning decent wages again.  Widely used during our most recent primary elections, the phrase actually was coined during our previous Great Depression, under FDR’s administration. 

After the collapse of Wall Street, in 1932, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the National Rcovery Act to resurrect employment.  Considered un-Constitutional, one year later, the act was renamed The New Deal and included the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) and the WPA (Works Project Administration).  Established to produce jobs and put money back into taxpayer’ pockets, both entities were formed to repair the nation’s physical infrastructure: roads, bridges, parks, and highways.

The CCC was a para-military organization designed to take young men off the street and keep them out of trouble by employing them for projects such as Virginia’s Skyline Drive.  As in the Army, the workers lived in barracks and were fed three meals a day.  The WPA provided employment for older, married men via labor for governmental projects.  When the media inquired as to their exact duties, workers were quoted as saying, “I lean on a shovel.”  In other words, these jobs did little or nothing to resolve the unemployment crisis.  And if rampant unemployment wasn’t a big enough cross to bear, Mother Nature added to our national misery with droughts and dust storms.

Perceiving the Great Depression as Biblical peoples must have viewed the plagues, some Americans deemed our fate “the wrath of God.”  They’d assumed that we were reaping Divine retribution for the indulgences of the Roaring Twenty’s.

Nearly seventy years later, President Obama atempted to tear a page out of FDR’s book with his economic stimulus plan.   He also sent up a hue and cry for “shovel ready jobs.”  Our fearless leader was referring to jobs in which workers could be employed immediately, as opposed to being assigned to projects that are bogged down in planning, design, or legal red tape.

As well-intentioned as Mr. Obama may be, there remain some glaring differences between the Great Depression of the 1930’s and the Great Recession (Depression?) of 2008.   When Wall Street crumbled in 1929, the government did not — unlike Mr. Obama’s adminstration — bail out the financial institutions to the tune of $710 billion.  In fact, the governnment gave these institutions not one red cent.

In the 1930’s, there were also more shovel ready jobs — a lot more.  A road gang could easily have consisted of 300 or more workers, simply because technology was not as advanced as it is today.  Nowadays, it takes a virtual skeleton crew using state-of-the-art machinery to produce quality roadways more quickly and cheaply.  As automation continues to replace human labor, what are our children’s and grandchildren’s places in the American workforce?  Will our descendents compete with machines and slave labor in a global society?  We need answers to these questions before this or the next administration crafts another stimulus program.

Parents should seriously consider the best investments in their children’s education.  Should tuition money be paid to colleges and universities, or should it be paid to vocational schools?  Our current government seems willing to make our children common laborers by way of shovel ready jobs. I suppose this strategy is more expedient than creating jobs that require real skill and intelligence, jobs that can make them self-sufficient and in turn, restore America to a state of prosperity.

A common laborer does not require a college education.  All he or she needs is a strong back and some muscle.  In pondering this, let us not forget the wise motto of the United Negro College Fund, which can and should be applied to citizens of all races:  “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” 

In the James Hilton novel, Lost Horizon, the High Lama reveals to his predecessor that a great storm is coming to engulf the world.  At the storm’s conclusion, the treasures of Shangri-La (heaven-on-Earth) were promised to emerge, thereby restoring a ravaged world.  In his prognostications, the spiritual leader also echoed Jesus Christ in predicting that the meek would inherit the Earth.

Unfortunately, Lost Horizon is a work of pure fiction.  The truth of the matter is, it will not be a happy ending after the great storm in America subsides.  The storm in question is, of course, the collapse of our financial institutions and, fittingly, the government that allowed it to happen. Although our present administration pontificates that our “recovery” in the wake of the $710 billion bailout is working and the future looks brighter, this storm has been brewing for quite a while now, and no hurricane hunter’s device tossed into its eye is going to deflate it.

California’s Governor has announced that his State can no longer fund itself, and has requested that the Federal government bail it out.  If the former mighty “Conan the Barbarian” can be felled by such a storm, what shelter exists for the common man and woman?  And, California is just the tip of the iceberg, as more States totter on the edge of financial ruin.  How many bailouts can the taxpayers afford?

Despite the rape and pillage of our economy by big business buying off elected officials, there has been no fiscal restraint in Washington or even at the State level. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is a strategy that does not work when our President asks citizens to tighten the belt even further as he uses that belt to strangle taxpayers with the costs linked to a proposed national healthcare system.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Americans had enjoyed an increasingly prosperous economy from the time that World War II ended, until President Bush, Senior, marched us into Saudi Arabia, thus sending interest rates skyrocketing.  The post-WWII boom began with an exploding housing industry, the advent of technology, and the race to space, which we won.  Considering that a relative blink of an eye earlier, our people were hurling themselves out of buildings due to the Stock Market crash, our fiscal rebound was an amazing accomplishment on a national level!  We pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps following the Great Depression, thanks largely to the institution of FDR’s social programs (including Social Security and Medicare).  Once the war ended, peace and prosperity reigned.

Now deeming these programs “entitlements,” our government claims that their wells of funding are running dry and cannot be sustained. I don’t know about you, but when I hear our Congressmen and media reps talk about “entitlements,” as if it is a dirty world, it makes my blood boil.  If the perks given to our so-called leaders of industry and government are not entitlements, then what is?

The difference between their entitlements and ours is that we average, law abiding, hard-working slobs actually contributed to our programs with our hard-earned dollars, the same as we do when we buy any insurance policy!  There is no doubt in my mind that the program funds were mismanaged, misappropriated, and (oh, why don’t I just come out and say it?) stolen, period, for purposes other than their original intent, which was to support the common workingman and woman!

When the government decides that it is time to take fiscal responsibility and make the first cut in spending, what will be cut?  Will we as a nation reduce aid to foreign countries (a calculated ploy to buy their friendship)?  Will we cut future bailouts to institutions whose CEO’s still crisscross the country in private jets and give immense bonuses to their higher-ups, even as they plead for the handouts?  Will we continue to reward corporations who export American jobs?  My guess is, we will, and thereby will escalate the screwing over of the taxpayers!

If we all manage to survive somehow until 2012, the results of the Presidential election will herald the path that America will take. I portend that fiscal responsibility will not come without pain to America’s citizens.  Cutting spending is akin to attempting to break a bad habit, without being armed with the necessary resources.  Hopefully, wise men and women will step forward to suggest a solution that will ease the suffering while we go through an even bigger withdrawal: the separation from our earnings and the social programs into which we have paid.

Perhaps, in the end, the meek will not inherit the earth.  Perhaps, in the end, only those robust taxpaying souls strong enough and resilient enough will survive yet another national crisis.

The graphical representation below demonstrates far better than words the staggering growth of unemployment throughout the United States during the period from January 2007 to the present time.  With double-digit unemployment spreading like a contagion to virtually every state and locality in the United States, our nation’s recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression seems dubious.

Perhaps, we can all land those “lucrative” work-at-home jobs.  Or, better yet, maybe we should all seek bailout funds from Uncle Sam.  If bailout funds had gone directly to the people rather than the Wall Street elite, then average Americans would have been able to pay their bills and keep their homes while consumer spending, investment, and entrepreneurship would have blossomed.

“While Nero fiddled, Rome burned” is an expression coined to symbolize governmental extravagance in the face of suffering and hardship by its citizenry.  While politicians in Washington posture before the media – feigning concern for the citizens who foot the bill for their salaries, lavish expense accounts, and junkets around the globe, real Americans encounter joblessness or the fear of imminent joblessness and financial ruin on a daily basis.

At the dawn of each day, government officials at all levels should be compelled to watch the video below.  Then, perhaps, they might discover the source of the collective discontent of many and commit themselves to developing “working” solutions. 

My friends and I grew up in a culturally diverse neighborhood in South Philadelphia, near the intersection of 10^th and Ritner Streets.  Our childhood occurred during the Great Depression, a time of immense want for so many people.  Somehow, though, I remember it with fondness, as do my friends.  In the ’30’s (that would be the 1930’s for anyone who hasn’t studied American history as you should), the streets of the city were not clogged with automobiles or choked with smog; public transportation was the mode of travel.  To us kids, life was pleasant as our parents struggled to eke out an existence, keep the roofs over our heads, and food on our plates.

To get to our neighborhood schools, we wore out a lot of shoe leather; there were no buses to transport us.  We carried our books, pencils, and papers, as well as our tasty homemade lunches (no prepackaged chemical and preservative-laden stuff from a factory). After school, we would walk home and play in the street before suppertime.  The boys would play stickball or tag; the girls would write in the streets with chalk, play hopscotch, and tend to their baby dolls.  Occasionally, one of the girls would cross the line and we’d let her, provided she could hit, run, and throw … the ball, not us!  Gender equality had not yet fully blossomed, so we may have been just a bit ahead of our time for enduring the tomboys.

After our playtime, which cost little or no money, we did not waste electricity and did not fry our brain cells a la cellular technology.  Instead, we knuckled down to do our homework, sans Internet search engines and computers.  If we really needed to research a topic, we had the public library at our fingertips.  Rooms and rooms of wall-to-wall books, and nary a coffee urn or a gourmet pastry to be found!  And no chatting, either; it was “Silence is Golden” at the library, so that everyone could study in peace and quiet.  Before snuggling into bed for the night, we listened with rapt attention to radio programs designed to scare the pants off us kids (e.g., “The Shadow”).  Ah, the thrill of a delicious mystery conducted sight unseen over the airwaves!

Later on, a cataclysmic event occurred that would forever would change our lives. When the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, America was dragged into World War II.  Some say that Roosevelt had advance warning of the attack, but allowed it to happen anyway, in order to better market the war to the American public.  We knew of no such rumor at the time; in fact, such a rumor would have been unthinkable.  All we knew is that our beautiful Hawaii had been bombed, with no prior attack on our part.  Everyone in my neighborhood was left reeling; in fact, most of us were unaware of exactly where Pearl Harbor was located, until the radio broadcast the stunning news.  Congress dove into action by initiating the Draft to conscript young men into the Armed Forces.  Factories and shipyards began to retool, run primarily by women as the men went overseas, to produce the materials and equipment we needed to wage war.  Japan had woken a sleeping giant.

When the bombs destroyed Pearl Harbor and so many lives, a lot of us kids were not quite military age, so it would be a few years before we were called.  But as the war progressed with no end in sight, we knew it was inevitable: as soon as we’d reached the age of 18, we would receive a notice from our local Draft Board. This was the summons to appear for medical and mental competency tests, to see if we were going to be accepted into the Armed Forces.   According to our ages, one by one, the neighborhood boys were swept off the streets by Uncle Sam, thus forcing us to become men practically overnight.  Since many of us passed the tests, we entered the Armed Services and remained there until the end of World War II.

During this global conflict, members of our neighborhood group fought in both the North African/European and the Pacific Theaters.  Some fought in Tunisia, Normandy, and the Battle of the Bulge; some were shipped off to the Pacific and China, as well as India, Burma, and following Japan’s surrender, the Occupation of Japan, as peacekeeping forces.

To mention a few of our friends, Nicky (“Blue”) Prestipino fought with Merrill’s Marauders in Burma, Andy Scrocca helped save the USS Intrepid after a kamikaze attack upon that noble ship, Jimmy Tedesco was wounded at the battle of the Bulge, Anthony Didio was awarded the Soldiers Medal in India, and Joe Ermilio was killed in action at Anzio.  Thank God, he was only casualty of the war, and he was very much missed and mourned.

With the end of the War, the neighborhood boys returned and began to congregate once again on the corner of 10^th and Ritner.  Trying to recapture the best years of our lives lost due to the war, we decided to form a social club named Club Gramercy.  As time went by, we all got married and drifted away to pursue new lives with our spouses and ultimately, our children.

In the spring of 1986, two members of Club Gramercy met across a meat counter in a Greater Northeast Supermarket and talked about getting the old gang back together again.  Those two men were Joe (“Baby Joe”) Carabasi and Tony Griffini.  By networking with other members, Joe and Tony managed to contact 54 former members of Club Gramercy!  In October of 1986, at Viterelli’s Restaurant in the Greater Northeast section of Philadelphia, the first meeting of the Boys of 10^th and Ritner occurred with all 54 members attending.  We had a joyous reunion!

Back in the old neighborhood, news of the Boys of 10^th and Ritner spread, and more people clamored for membership, or at least, attendance at our gatherings.  We decided to have more meetings in the old neighborhood at the Holiday Inn, in South Philly, to accommodate larger groups.  This went on for a few years, after which it was decided to have our meetings more often and in a less formal fashion.  The site for these meetings was Sam Cobblestone’s Bar and Grill, where we met every second Tuesday of each month.

At Sam’s, we’d gather and for a few short hours, would share a dinner and relive our past exploits of glory. John Carosiello would chair the meetings and Romeo Celommi served as our recording secretary.  Our meal would start with an appetizer, usually mussels (in red and white sauce) with roasted peppers and anchovies; these were accompanied by fresh, hot Italian rolls, and were followed by the main course from the menu.

After dinner, the chairman would inform us about members who could not attend and any other news that concerned us.  After all the formalities were discussed, the meeting would be open to conversation by the members as we relived our youth.  This included jokes by the aptly named Happy Joe Jr. and stories by “Baby Joe” Carabasi, Nicky (“Blue”) Prestipino, Jimmy (“Pinerck”) Tedesco, and others among our band of brothers.

Although most of our members were of Italian descent, we did have one member of the Jewish faith.  Danny Rose, God bless him, could bake Italian pizzelles that would rival many Italian bakeries (pizzelles are a type of flat, crunchy cookie, pressed flat in a hot grill). Our meetings continued till Sam Cobblestone’s establishment closed.  Bidding Sam’s a bittersweet farewell, we then took up the torch at Tony Luke’s restaurant in South Philly on Saturday afternoons. As time went on, we started to gather at Serra Torres restaurant in Morton, Pennsylvania.

In 1996, The Boys of 10^th and Ritner held our 10^th Anniversary at the Coastline Restaurant in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The members who participated, along with their wives, stood as a testimony to friendship born of a group of neighborhood boys who refused, despite a long, bloody war and various life circumstances, to let the camaraderie die.

Since then, God has called some of our boys home; due to attrition, our meetings have reduced in frequency and members.  But the spirit of the old neighborhood, and the good times we wrested out of some the worst times this nation has ever seen, still live on in the hearts of the remaining members of The Boys of 10th and Ritner. 

In today’s fast-paced, rapidly changing world, the Holiday Season is upon us and gone before we know it.  As I consider my own Christmases past, I think about the simpler and yet – in many ways – more joyful Holidays of my youth.

Growing up in an Italian-American family in South Philadelphia, I viewed the Holiday Season as the most wonderful time of the year.  And, for those uninitiated in Italian-American culture, any Holiday was an occasion for a sumptuous feast fit for a King.  

Despite growing up during the Great Depression, I experienced no want in my family’s Holiday celebrations.  My maternal grandfather owned and operated a Barber Shop and, for these happy occasions, he would set up a long banquet table in his Shop.  There, the entire family would gather for a multi-course food fest.

With Thanksgiving ushering in this most joyous season of the year, we celebrated in grand style.  Our feast would begin with Meatball Soup, a soup created from chicken stock with tiny meatballs.  Next, was a pasta course comprised of homemade ravioli and gravy meats including meatballs, sausage, and braciole.  A short time thereafter the turkey would appear with all the trimmings.  For dessert, we enjoyed a wide variety of homemade pies and cookies, as well as fresh fruit and ice cream.  And, the best part was the thought that we would do it all over again the following month for Christmas!

After Thanksgiving, my parents would take my brothers and me to Center City where we would tour the decorated department stores and look at gifts for Christmas.  We were each allowed one small gift and the highlight of the evening was to eat at Horn & Hardart’s Automat restaurant.

The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas was a time of wonder and anticipation for a young boy.  When December 24^th arrived, we celebrated with the traditional Italian Christmas Eve fish dinner.  Then, we decorated our Christmas tree with tinsel and put the star atop the tree and the Nativity Scene beneath it.  Listening to the radio and hearing Silent Night, Adeste Fideles, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and Jingle Bells brought a feeling of peace and serenity.

Christmas in our family was a Holy Day and so, we went to church before enjoying the family feast at grandpa’s.  When grandpa passed away, the duty of family gatherings was passed on to my parents.  Yet, I will never forget those wonderful Holidays of my youth with grandpa at his Barber Shop.

As I reminisce Christmases past, I also think about my service during World War II, when the Holidays found me half a world away from family and friends.  The song I’ll Be Home for Christmas still rings in my ears.  And, as I consider Christmas present, my thoughts turn to our troops manning the lonely outposts of the world during this Christmas season.  May the joy of Christmas lift their spirits and may “Peace on Earth, good will towards men” lead us to a better tomorrow.

History has a habit of repeating itself, maybe in not exactly the same sequence. Today’s fiscal woes are a reflection of the Great Depression of the twentieth century.  An economic tailspin ending in financial disaster and many suicides, the Depression began with the collapse of Wall Street in 1929 as a result of greed and speculative trading.  Overnight, millionaires became paupers and America’s lifestyle altered drastically.  President Herbert Hoover turned a blind eye to the situation, erroneously treating it as a market change that would correct itself:  an entire decade would pass before the market rebounded.

Wall Street’s collapse impacted the banking industry, which was short on cash. As rumors of a banking failure ran rampant, depositors rushed to retrieve their savings.  It was like that scene from the film It’s a Wonderful Life, where everyone in the small town demanded to pull their money out of George Bailey’s Savings and Loan — except that the 1929 reality was driven by millions of depositors.  Their actions created a domino effect, toppling banking institutions nationwide and causing the economy to hit rock bottom.

Unemployment skyrocketed as businesses struggled to stay afloat.  With no income, the housing market took a nosedive; thousands of people lost their homes and farms to foreclosures.  Mother Nature added to the havoc, bringing drought and dust storms that plagued America’s farmlands.  Fearing that all this horror was the wrath of God, people all across the country prayed for forgiveness.  Most of all, they prayed for deliverance.

The difference between the Great Depression of the 1930’s and the Great Recession of 2008-09 was that the government did not extend bailouts during the earlier crash.  In addition, insured savings accounts, unemployment insurance, credit cards, and Social Security did not exist.  The future looked bleak in the ’30’s for those who had not jumped out of windows.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt succeeded Hoover as our nation’s President, inheriting the daunting task of national recovery.  Roosevelt realized the answer to solving the problem lay in the spending power of the people.  To stimulate their spending, he passed the NRA (National Recovery Act), the WPA (Works Project Administration), and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps).  He also instituted the SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) and the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation).  Roosevelt charged these organizations with the following tasks:

The WPA – Getting Americans back into the workforce and earning incomes.

The CCC – Taking young, indigent men off the streets to work on public projects.

The SEC – Overseeing financial institutions to ensure that they did not engage in fraudulent practices.

The FDIC – To bring trust back to the banking industry, so that depositors would reopen their savings accounts.

FDR also set up food banks to put food on the table of many starving and undernourished Americans.  He used the radio to broadcast his “Fireside Chats” and thus became a calming and authoritative voice during hard times.

As time passed, the President also enacted Social Security. This was a mandatory savings plan designed to enable those who retired at age 65 to enjoy their twilight in dignity.  All of these were the legacy of FDR, the only President in the history of the United States to be elected for four terms.

Despite his best efforts to jump-start economy, the Great Depression dragged on.  Its only solution was World War ll.  With the enactment of the draft and the demand for equipment and supplies needed to fight the war, the economy boomed.  Happy days were here again!

I lived through the Great Depression and witnessed men begging for food on the streets on cold wintry nights.   I remember how my mother made them sandwiches and hot drinks, and allowed them to sit in the entryway of our row house, out of the biting wind to enjoy the small offerings that must have seemed like manna to them.

The saying goes that “out of something bad comes something good.”  The Great Depression brought families together to enjoy each other’s company.  Holidays were anticipated with relish because it meant sitting around the dining room table for a good meal with several generations of our families.  In some respects, we may be a bit better off today with this current recession.  But in others, such as family intimacy and expressions of gratitude for what we still have, we are lacking. 

Growing up during the Great Depression, life seemed to be simpler.  There were no televisions, telephones, or credit cards, and there were surely less automobiles on the road.  Those who would come to invent the Internet were not even born!   During those times, the average family had but a sole provider to make ends meet.  With the nation plunged into a Depression, my own father had a tough time keeping us housed, clothed, and fed.  But despite the low rate of employment, he managed to pull us all through some very tough times.

As Dad worked long hours to earn a living, Mom remained at home, the nurturing figure central to our lives.  Upon her shoulders rested everything not linked to the production of a steady paycheck: the care of the children, maintenance of the house, the laundry and mending of clothing (we recycled four decades before it became the norm), the preparation of three meals a day, and everything that went along with those responsibilities.  Her work was never done.

Those times were hard on everyone and it took teamwork to survive those ordeals.  Even we children had our roles and tasks to make life a little easier on Mom.  As soon as we were old enough, we would wash and dry the dishes after supper, run errands, and take care of our daily needs as best we were able.

However, life did not center completely upon work.  In retrospect, our “downtime” was exceptionally sweet, as it could only be enjoyed as the result of hard work and focus.  Today’s standards of recreation, with their emphasis upon computers and other electronic gadgets, probably make our earlier forms of pleasure seem medieval by comparison.   The sources of entertainment in those days consisted of playing stickball and other games with friends, reading books, gathering around the radio in delicious anticipation of a mystery-serial such as “The Shadow Knows,” and if you were lucky enough to own a Victrola, as my family was, we also played the music of that era.  (A Victrola was a machine that played large, flat, round disks; that’s how recorded music was pressed and heard in those days.  No ITunes and no IPods!)  As a family, we would also go hiking in the Wissahickon Park, sail down the Delaware River on the Wilson Line, or visit our relatives. All of life’s problems seemed to vanish when we were enjoying ourselves.

After surviving the Great Depression, our next challenge was that of World War II, a global conflict that changed not only our nation’s economy but also set the stage for the huge social transformations that would ultimately follow.   As men were drafted into the war, leaving gaping holes in the employment arena, the role of women changed.  Entering the factories, they made airplanes, parachutes, and other items critical to the war effort.   Those employed in other types of manufacturing facilities produced the things needed and used by those still on American soil.  Even children got involved in supporting our troops overseas.  It was a time for everyone to rally around the Flag and put their shoulders to the wheel.

World War II ended victoriously for America as we entered the Atomic Age.  Men fortunate enough to return home from the conflict married and raised families whose children later bore the moniker “Baby Boomers.”  The housing industry exploded, as homes were needed to meet the demands of these families.  Household equipment, whose manufacture had slowed considerably in order to produce the items needed for the war, once again enjoyed a surge in production and sales.  These included automobiles and washing machines.  The emergence of television ushered in an entire new galaxy of employment opportunities as well as a new form of entertainment.  With the Depression over and the war won, “Happy days were here again.”

As we entered the Space Age, America enjoyed great economic growth.  Neil Armstrong, the astronaut who took the famous “one great step for mankind” on the moon was an American.  The stock market soared to over 1,000 and we became the Great Society.  During this time of prosperity, we forgot the lessons learned in surviving the Great Depression.  As more than one historian has observed, “History teaches us nothing;” it was just a matter of time until the economic bubble broke once more.  The course our nation had set itself upon was akin to that of the Roman Empire.

Although we are today experiencing another economic Depression, all is not lost. America’s greatness did not and does not stem from its government; from its inception, our nation’s accomplishments are direct results of the resourcefulness and resilience of its people.  Our elected leaders have grown rich and lazy, more interested in self worth than fulfilling the will of the people who elected them. When he left his second term in office, George Washington, our first President, was deeply concerned about the direction in which the country was heading.  He felt that the two-party system would fail to enact the principles upon which this country had been founded.  If President Washington were here today to witness the state of our economy and what has happened in government, I think even he would be shocked!

Along with our elected leaders, our own citizenry has grown fat and lazy, willing to accept whatever government dictates.  More public interest is shown for sports events than to the task of upholding the tenets established in our Founding Fathers’ Constitution.

Once again, it is time to rally around the Flag and demonstrate the will of the people.  If you wish to initiate positive change, exercise the First Amendment.  Write to your elected officials and tell them how you want to see our beloved Country run.

“Remember the Roman Empire!”  And also remember:  “The pen is mightier than the sword!”