First Published on 06/03/2015
Pap had two pistols. I’ve told the story of his Colt .25 semiautomatic, his “piskill”. He debated taking it to the hospital with him when he had his hernia surgery and I talk- ed him out of it. Subsequently he learned his semi private roommate was a murderer/attempted suicide who was met at the door by uniformed policemen upon discharge. Pap swore if he ever went back there he’d take his piskill along.
Second pistol, a Smith and Wesson .38 Special, nickel plated revolver resided in a padded box in his desk. He used it twice each year, New Year’s Eve, 4th of July. I remember standing in Big House’s kitchen with my fingers in my ears. When he stepped out into the back yard to celebrate. One full cylinder of six did the trick. He didn’t want to be wasteful and shells cost money.
He’d gotten the .38 in Florida while working in animal disease research for US Department of Agriculture. Job required some travel, much of it through ill policed rural back country. It was early in the “Great Depression”. A lot of normally good folks were getting pretty desperate for cash and knew men who drove government cars at night probably had a solid steady income which might be lifted. Pap’s .38 rode beside him in plain sight.
Many times I heard him talk about the value of that steady income. How good men who worked for wages had little or nothing to spend even for necessities while he earned enough salary to put a little by. He so badly wanted me to be a dentist, a professional with solid income, and his experience during the depression was hammered home as one principal reason.
All my life with Pap I heard stories about that Great Depression. How newspapers carried stories of formerly wealthy men jumping out of windows on Wall Street when the stock market crashed. Stories about hobos, men panhandling, begging for food and coins so they could feed their children. Men hitch hiking to find work. Families living in old cars parked where they’d run out of gas and money.
Banks had no money to lend. No credit cards. If folks were lucky store keepers might run an account for essentials, but payment was expected the instant money became available. Folks who had savings in a bank that didn’t fail were lucky.
Most folks caught in such hard economic times fought their way out of it. Many did literally fight in World War Two, their wives taking up men’s work back home. A hard way to break the depression’s back, but it worked.
Many folks who lived through the Great Depression were still around when the Great Recession began in 2007/2008. I remember news stories, both broadcast and printed, comparing events in 2008 to similar happenings in 1930. 2008 Pap was gone twenty four years and Mom died that year. They’d both fully indoctrinated me on how to manage finances, credit and savings, based upon their Depression experiences and memories.
I’d heard those stories all my life. Most Americans who had ancestors living through the 1930s heard them too. Many in more recent generations had heard such “Old Fogey Tales” and placed little credence on them. Stories which made no real serious impression until 2008 rolled around not out of the realm of ancient history became up to date news about foreclosures on homes, job lose welfare roll expansion. Soup line of the 1930s became food stamps of the early 2000s.
Bankers, economists, politicians are insulated from hard times America. News storiesreport their confusion about slow pace of economic recovery. Opinion columnists banty their thoughts on reasons why Americans are spending more, thus opening up manufacturing and retail while building our money supply. Growth of America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is standard.
Ancestor’s advice built on experience in the Great Depress what’s holding American people back. Government want to whip up enthusiasm for spending growth while folks’ common sense wants to hold back, save 1 egg to help through tough times. If politicians and bankers really want to help they can find funds to pay interest on consumer savings which will help build those nest eggs and ease Americans back into spending again.
