Depression Then, Recession Now?

The following is an excerpt from "The Chinaberry Tree," a true story about a little girl (me) growing up during The Great Depression. It wasn’t as bad for my family as it was for some families–my Daddy managed to keep his job. He made about $250 a month as a General Manager for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. When he took a salary hit of $25 a month, Mama went to the landlord of the house we lived in, and secured a $5/month reduction in rent from the $35/month he charged. It wasn’t much, but you could buy a lot of groceries for that $5. No longer a little girl, but now old and retired, I have written this recollection of those days to say to whoever wants to read: yes, it is scary. Yes, it requires fortitude. No, we didn’t have a lot compared to the things we take for granted today. If we grew up into the Greatest Generation, it occurs to me that the Depression was a proving ground. Nothing much is ever learned by your success–surviving failure is the process for getting ahead, not only financially, but in every other aspect of life.

I was six when the Great Depression, as it was called, began in the 1930s.

I remember Daddy telling Mama that many factories had closed in the East, and men were out of work. Some of them left their families behind and hopped a freight train -– an inexpensive but sometimes rather dangerous method of travel -– to see if they could find work somewhere, anywhere the train took them. This method of transportation was chancy for health and limb. The trains were moving when the men ran alongside to hop through an open boxcar door, grab a handhold, and swing themselves in. Railroad “bulls” –- police -– made sure that getting in the easy way when the train had stopped was not encouraged. They threw the men off the train when they found them occupying it whether it was going or not; it made no difference to them.

Besides getting out of town, without a job and with little or no money, the problem of eating was uppermost in the travelers’ minds. Sometimes in the larger cities they would band together in the woods, or safely out of town, to bed down for the night. These places were called “hobo jungles” and if any food was to be had, it was mostly shared. The men were not criminals, they were desperate people trying to get by.

On their way through towns, they would stop at houses, go around to the back door, and with hat in hand would ask if the lady of the house had any food to spare. Mama would always feed them. She kept a supply of brown paper bags (saved from the grocery store) and would make two sandwiches, place them in the bag along with a piece of fruit and two cookies if she had them. Many times she would add a cup of hot coffee which the person would sip sitting on the back steps while waiting for the meal. Although Mama and I were home alone during the time Daddy was at work, we were never afraid because the men were very courteous and thankful for the “handout.” The men would always say, “God bless you, Lady,” and leave to resume their travels on the freight train boxcars.

I had heard that places where the lady of the house was nice, and fed hungry folks, like Mama, were marked somehow, but I searched all around our block and never saw any pile of stones, arrows, or any other signs. I could not imagine my own father out of work, going from place to place, begging for a meal, without a bed to sleep in. It made my own home so comfortable, our supper of beans and homemade bread and canned peaches so tasty. I thought we must be rich.

It seems strange now, but there was a hierarchy of class among these homeless men. A hobo was a person who was a knight of the road -– he never took along a blanket, or a pot to cook in, or a change of clothing. Those who did were called “Bindle Stiffs”–the bindle meaning the rolled up blanket and other necessities carried by “Bums”. There was a song about it that I still sing out loud to the utter surprise of my dog:

My shoes are worn, my pants are torn, they’re baggy at the knees;
They’re worn so thin, I feel the wind blow through my b.v.d.s,
And as I walk along the road, the folks can hear me hum...
I know that I’m a hobo, but who said I was a bum?

I realize that today’s recession sees a lot of jobs outsourced overseas, and the same type of workers are out of work again. I know that many banks failed in those days, and when they did, it was the depositors who lost the money. When banks fail now, the deposits are insured up to $100,000 and the bank is bought up by larger banks. I realize that the scandal caused by the lending institutions has caught not only those who made inexplicable loans and have lost those homes to foreclosure, but for those of us who had plugged along thinking our houses were gaining in value and now we can’t sell them because of the glut on the market -– we are both feeling the same pain.

There was a saying that happiness was a good five cent cigar, but no one had a nickel. As a matter of fact there are few and far between freight trains for anyone to hop anymore, and where the heck is our song? that’s what I want to know. Yes, there are a lot of similarities, and so far, most of our menfolks are still at home drawing unemployment compensation. I haven’t had a knock at the back door asking for food in sixty-two years. Now the homeless congregate at stop lights to make their plea en masse. Somehow it is less personal.

It got so bad that President Roosevelt (Franklin, not Theodore) in his New Deal legislation persuaded Congress to enact the CCC and the WPA, two projects that hired out of work women as well as men to build public buildings and roads, and operate arts, drama, media and literacy projects. Many paths, buildings and monuments built by this labor still exist in National Parks and Forests. My male cousins joined the Army to get the $21 a month and room and board. Luckily, this was a time when there was no Korea, Vietnam or Gulf States skirmish.

Last year, a group of volunteers in Phoenix spent the time gathering blankets. They canvassed neighborhoods, beseeched stores, and purchased with their own money as many blankets as they could. Then on Christmas Eve they gathered at a parking lot where homeless people congregated. They hauled grills enough to do the job and cooked 40 gallons of chili, and gave away a blanket and a bowl of chili to all who cloistered there. One homeless man said “The chili was wonderful -– I had 3 bowls of it. It was the first time I didn’t end the day hungry in a long time. And I already had one blanket but it sure is nice to have two of them -- one to cover me and one to lie down on.” If that statement doesn’t pull on your heart, tell Ebenezer Scrooge to step aside.

It seems to me that the difference between Depression then, and Recession now, so far anyway, is that those affected then were on the move. Probably the existence of the railroads had something to do with it, mobility being free to those agile enough to take the train without paying for a ticket. Today, homeless people tend to stay put, and somehow in their familiar environments, they tend to blend into their surroundings so those of us who don't look for them may never even see them. But they are there.