I was finishing up on a job today when the adjoiner walked up and started talking to me. He and I spoke some yesterday about the line between him and my client.
I'd say he's somewhere around 90 years old and still pretty sharp conversation wise. Today, he told me that he was a building contractor for 50 years before he retired in 2001. So we talked business a little and I asked him if he had ever seen it this bad.
He said not since he started in '51 BUT he remembers the Great Depression. He got choked up telling me about men showing up on his family's back porch asking if they could split firewood, hoe the garden, or anything for some cornbread to take to the family. He said "The worst we've seen in this country would have been considered high decadent living in those days."
Some more perspective. They have things called unemployment, social security and welfare these days as a result of the first Great Depression. That is why this depression doesn't seem so bad in comparison, even though virtually every metric out there says it is as bad or worse.
Those hard workers in the 30's turned out to be a great generation of men. Where we got from there to here is where I am left wondering.
I know for a fact that those days molded those men, usually in a positive manner.
JRL
Much Of The Money Recently Blown
Was frugally saved by those who lived through the depression. Most of them are gone but their children seem to have forgotten where that money came from.
Paul in PA
>Where we got from there to here is where I am left wondering.
At the risk of venturing into politics and cut rate over generalized sociology...
Those men saw real hardship and what became ingrained in them was a desire that their children never should have to live through similar times. Their children (the boomers) had this engrained in their social DNA and also led lives that, they believed, would result in their children having a "better life" than themselves.
The problem arises when the concepts of "more" and "better" gain so much power that they drown out the idea of "enough" and "sufficient". When you equate "more" and "better" with happiness, you effectively kill happiness. Bigger houses, vacations, two cars, three flat screen TV's, etc.; turns out they haven't made anyone of my generation (I'm a few months shy of 48) any happier than our grandparents. But it has created a culture of debt as people's income can no long provide "more" they turn to leverage. And ultimately debt limits one's choices; taken to the extreme, debt is the enemy of liberty.
Mr Fleming, that was well said. I could not agree more. Thanks.
Yes , well said. Still, I do not know where it went wrong between my grandfather and me. My dad does not posses these values, nor do I or my kids ( I pray). Nate's kids prob. watch more tv than mIne if that says anything. I made a decision to go "backwards".
