It impacted the rest of his life, nothing went to waste, anything that could be recycled was used again and again, then repaired with patches, glue, tacks, electrical tape, baling wire, hopes and prayers. Pants were mostly patches before they became animal bedding or used as rags and even then, 3 or 4 siblings wore those pants as they grew into the next size......
It was frustrating being raised by a depression era father, on the farm a crucial skill was opening feed sacks by removing the stitches where the bags had been sewn closed. Why? The local feed store paid 10 cents each for sacks they could use again. This meant not rushing through farm chores, taking extra time and care to open the animal feed. Meanwhile my friends with younger parents would thrust the pocketknives deep into those bags ripping them side to side as if they were enjoying gutting an enemy that had tormented their lives......
I just could not understand my dad..... and told him as much, his reply bounces around inside my skull like a tormented memory trying to escape my mind. "Yeah, I guess not," said dad. "But know I am extremely proud that you do not understand, you also have never felt hunger or known what it was like to cherish a possession as basic as a feed sack. But let me tell you there was a time when my siblings and I wore clothes momma made from feed sacks, and we were happy to have them. Son, I went to be hungry many nights......." I heard similar stories a million times, but I never really understood.
Stories from the Great Depression filled my existence as a kid especially after I wasted one item or another. Dad took it an extreme, as a kid I hated using the school restroom, every day after school my first item of business was to use the restroom when I got home. I will never forget my dad telling me how much money I was costing the family when I could have been using the bathroom at school, using their water, electricity and toilet paper..... Yep, the Great Depression hit hard and changed my dad forever!
For the first five decades of my life I wondered why dad let something that happened years ago impact our lives.....and then 2020 and the pandemic hit.
We live in rural Missouri, a place where the pandemic was but a rumor. Oh, don't get me wrong, the rest of the world went nuts but for us life went on as normal as possible. It was great, a vacation that went on for months, the kids still played little league, we partied with our neighbors and loved the freedom that God gave us.....
Life was GREAT, except for.......toilet paper. Dad's words coming back to haunt me. Do you remember the toilet paper shortage that gripped America? I will never forget one trip to Dollar General when a family friend called me aside, looking around to make sure no one overheard before whispering, "I put back a pack of toilet paper for your family!"
That was six years ago, only lasted a month or so and yet it causes me anxiety still today!!!! Thank God, I have yet to experience a Great Depression like my father's generation lived through, if wiping my ass is a fear six years later, after only a few months of a scare how would an entire depression hit me?
Oh, wait..... I know, like it did my dad and those that lived the horror of going to bed hungry wondering how they would ever survive the poverty that grasp their world by the throat and squeezed tighter every day for a generation.........
What Great Depression stories do you have.....and what did the pandemic do to you?
