Our parents shape us in so many ways. My father was born in the year 1900, my mother in 1909, and I came along as a surprise change-of-life baby in 1948. My child bride was born in 1954 and her mom, my beloved mother-in-law, in 1935.

I was reminded of that recently after supper.

Evil Princess: Have you put that plate away yet?

Me: No, I’m sopping up the last bit of gravy with some rye bread.

Her: Good to the last drop, huh?

Me: Yeah. My parents went through The Great Depression. Hell, my dad wouldn’t throw a crust of bread away.

Her: My grandmother (born in 1913) would say “There are children starving in Europe.”

Me: If my parents had said that to me and if I had been the smartass I am now, I would have said “Then send that food to Europe.”

Her: I said that to my mother once.

Me: How’d that work out for you?

Her: I said it to my mother…(ominous pause) … once!

Me:  Got it.

As much as we all bitch about inflation, perhaps we should be more grateful than we sometimes are for the abundance we have in this country.

41 COMMENTS

  1. When I questioned my Father (1932) about why he didn’t throw something away. His response would be “I am a child of the depression.”

  2. “…perhaps we should be more grateful than we sometimes are for the abundance we have in this country.”

    Abundance is a “Two-Edged Sword”. On the one hand, it is easy to enjoy the “Good Times” while they last. It is human nature to “take the easy path” and do as little as possible. To do as little as we can “get away with”.

    The other edge of the sword is that soft times make for a soft people. Certainly, the current generation is pinging the top of the “soft” charts. What other generation needs a “Safe Space” to go and sulk over the harshness of life? What other generation takes offense over “Micro-aggressions”? I rest my case.

    The Japanese took the step to attack Pearl Harbor, in December 1941, because the thought that Americans were soft and that they could get away with it and cripple the U.S. Navy in the pacific with one, swift, bold stroke.

    They were fools. Back then, America was still moving out of the “Frontier” era. Living on the hard frontier made for hard people. If that was not enough, America was tempered, further, by the hard times caused by the Great Depression. The perception that America is “soft” was a prime example of “wishful thinking” on the part of the Japanese. In truth, Americans of that era were as “hard as woodpecker lips”. The Japanese soon found out the depth of their misjudgment as the U.S. devastated the Japanese Navy and marched, island by island, right across the pacific.

    Nowadays, such a judgment would likely not be in error. Generations of “soft living” has left most Americans as “soft as a rotten peach”. It is doubtful that current Americans would, in any measure, live up the “Greatest Generation” that came out of the Great Depression and went on to fight and win WW II.

    My own father was born in June of 1929. Just in time to grow up, as a child, during the Great Depression. He grew up dirt poor in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee during the heart of the Great Depression. This gave him the mindset to deal with adversity and a very, very frugal outlook on money and goods. He was not a man to waste anything.

    Should we be grateful for the abundance we have? Of course, we should. However, it is this abundance and soft life that has contributed to the drop in moral standards and respect for the law that we see all across this country. In a very real sense, this abundance is destroying America.

    However, not to worry. The glass is half full. Our weakness and moral decay will soon plunge America into “hard times” again. Whether it will be economic collapse, Great Depression 2.0, Civil Strife, or a combination of all of the above, I cannot say.

    However, the human race is infinitely flexible. When the hard times return, the soft will go under and the hard will only get harder. A new generation of “tempered” Americans will rise. So, even moral decay is cyclic and cannot last forever.

    Quote of the Day:

    “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

    • I remember Osama Bin Laden thought fighting soft Americans would be easy. He was right. Fighting American CIVILIANS would be easy, but those jihadists fought our military instead. They are the best, and toughest Americans. Our military slaughtered those jihadists, even though we lost the war politically.

      Same thing happened in Vietnam. Their army killed 58,000 of our army. Our army killed 1.5 million of their army.

  5. Dad was born in 1925, mom in 1927.
    Dad basically left home and started working for a nearby farm at age 9 to help support his 8 siblings. I thought he did that at age 13. After dad passed, his next oldest sibling, my uncle, corrected me saying he left at 13 but my dad had left for the farm at age 9. Then dad left high-school his senior year, in January 1943, to join the Marines. He ended up island hopping in the Pacific.

    Dad knew how to do anything and everything. No college degree but worked on space capsule, nuclear sub systems and more. He never wasted anything. He typically owned the discards of others. Like the 1954 tractor in his hangar when he died at age 83, discarded by a friend who depended on dad to keep it running for years. Recycling, carpentry, wiring, electronics, mechanics (diesel & aircraft), logging (built his own log home at age 60, starting with trees on the stump), and the list goes on. He couldn’t afford to hire ‘professionals’, with no college degree and 5 kids to support. He became the professional. At everything. And he was brilliant at it all. How many times I saw him working in the rain or snow or after a long day at work, well into the night … And he could fashion a mulligan of a meal with the leftovers! Not to mention the meals of venison, pheasant, squirrel, or raccoon (from my first hunt).

    Mom. Well, she was always worried about food, money, value and waste. Watching her all but scrub the inside of a can for the last drop or kernel! It is a habit iI confess to have to this day. Role models, lol. Getting every kernel or drop and polishing my plate. Sauce on the plate? Not done with the meal yet!

    I recall my grandfather talking about conservation during the wars and The Great Depression. How they eked the fullest value out of a gallon of gasoline or any other resource they had, food included.

    I still have so many traits of the veterans of depression and war. I could live off grid as my parents did for 10 years in their 60’s upon dad’s retirement. My wife, not so much, lol.

    We don’t have enough farm raised citizens today. You know, the men & women who know the cows need milking even if you are sick or there is a raging storm. The people who know how to find a way to fix it & better, maintain it because they don’t have the time, resources or money to suffer the alternative. The people who were too exhausted after a hard day of work to be bothered with, much less have the need for hours of entertainment & distractions from the business of living. People who knew the value of their good fortune and the value of their neighbors. People who were active in their communities. That old quote “Ask not what your country can do for you … ”

    I find myself back at that clean plate, having hyper-miled while driving earlier in the day while avoiding a stop at the hardware store because my junkpile in the garage offered it’s self up to the task finished earlier. Run on sentenced. And more. Just like life should be. My ADHD is showing. Opps.

  6. Yes, I’m thankful. My WWII Vet dad grew up during the depression. He told me about his parents and sibblings eating bread with a bit of lard and salt on it and lots of corn meal mush. Many folks both young and old are starving in this world. Many children eat clay to try and fill up their aching bellies. Many die and we should all weep for them. I thank God that I live in America and that me and my kids always have something to eat.

    • I interviewed a gentleman who grew up back then, after he won another shotgun trophy at age 80. When he was 11 he carried his .22 to school every day. (Back then, no one cared.) On the way home he’d cut through the woods. If he shot a squirrel or rabbit his family had meat in their supper. He got real good at finding squirrels and rabbits.

  7. My wife and I were both born in 1946. Both of our parents lived through the depression and World War II that shaped their lives, and also shaped ours. I am not quite as fruga as my wife, who will throw nothing away that may have any possible future use. We buy nothing disposable and wash and dry dishes. We are thankful for the incredible prosperity that we enjoy today, but that still does not make us live an extravagant lifestyle.

    The later generations do not have the advantage of the guidance of parents who lived through extreme hard times, and it shows in the state of our society. Very few people value what they have today.

  8. My parents were also children of the depression and were also affected by WWII. Even after they were comfortably well off, they never spent money extravagantly or frivolously. I was taught those same values, although I think they may have thought my spending on guns and training to be a bit of both. They were also two of the nicest, “goodest” people you could ever meet. I was truly blessed to be raised by such wonderful, down to earth people.
    My experience similar to EP’s was in my teens, when I had done something bad enough (I don’t even remember what it was now) that my mother called me a “SOB”. My response was, “Well, you know what that makes you then!” That was the only time my mother ever slapped me across the face, and I surely deserved it! Funnily enough, my dad, who would have otherwise blistered my behind for such behavior, let my mom’s painful reply to me be the only physical punishment I received – but he did let me know he would take it on himself to deliver corrective action upon any further such conduct. Needless to say, that was never necessary, and since then I have tried to think before I blurt out a reply, although I still occasionally have ‘filter problems’.

    • I’m afraid your dear Mom did a poor job of choosing her words. She was probably trying to sound like a man, and chose a word she heard a lot. I think your comeback would have been brilliant as part of a comedy routine. But you are right, you should not have verbalized it to Mom.

  9. I was told “Children are starving in Asia!”

    I sleep well now knowing how many young Asians I have saved over the years. Given the scope of humanity saved by my own efforts to clean my plate, I am expecting a call from the Nobel Prize Committee any day now.

    Also, it mitigates the remorse I feel for being overweight.

  10. My father was born in 1908 and my mother in 1909. Both, sadly, have passed. But, while my mother didn’t like guns (for some unknown reason) my “emancipation proclamation” at age 21 was a S&W Mod 28 (purchase price: $85.00). Still have it and it has the smoothest trigger pull of any of my other revolvers.

    • Hmph. My S&W Model 28 cost me $600 used about eight years ago, and I thought I got a screming good deal. Still do. Not sure what a new one costs these days but I don’t care. That is one amazing handgun. SUPER smooth action. And pretty……

  11. Yep, I have memories about all the starving kids in China lecture. I made the mistake of telling my mother to take what’s left on my plate and send it to them (I was 7 at the time). That was the only time I made that mistake. My parents were born in 1916 and 1918. They were products of the Great Depression. Luckily for me, I listened to many things they told me about life. It served me well during the road through my own adulthood.

  12. Hear hear Mas and “The Evil Princess”! My mother used to remind me of all the starving children around the world as well. It was completely unadvisable to talk back to my mother. To do so would incur the belt wrath of mother, and the… Father when he got home and mother told him what we said. As the Mrs. iterated and re-iterated, you only did such things “once.”

  13. TJ (my dad) would completely wear things out and rebuild them before finally throwing them away ~ after he salvaged any useful parts. I remember warning him that the Secret Service was gonna come after him ~ because when he finally let go of any US currency bill, the poor president was turning BLUE and they’d get him for attempted assassination of a president!

    I came home once and he told me there was an air compressor pump on the trash pile if I wanted it. I replied, “Dad, if you are letting it go, the AIR inside the tank can’t even be any good.”

    He was known as “the guy to lend to”, because he always brought things back in better condition than he borrowed them. Yeah, that generation (1928 b) had learned to make good with what they had, because you never knew if they would get better. He taught valuable lessons.

    I believe that spirit is still alive in the younger generations. I see it spark occasionally. I’m hoping there will be enough of them to be the leaders when the crunch time finally comes ~ and it will.

  14. I think wrt food it’s even more extreme among some of the people sent to Auschwitz who looked strong enough to be sent to the labor camp side to starve slowly instead of being gassed at once — and managed to survived to the end of the war. The very idea of wasting food ….

  15. Most of the people in the world today, and most of the people throughout history, have been what we call “poor.” Every time we walk through a grocery store, we experience a modern miracle.

    I complain about New Jersey’s gun laws, but guns are verboten in most countries.

    America has such super abundance, I have to push food away from me. There is always too much food, but that is a blessing. However, too much food requires self-control, to avoid self-destruction.

  16. I’m a couple of years older than you Mas and my parents were from the same time as yours. I remember a time when I was framing up some walls during my building an addition onto my home. My dad, who was visiting us for a couple of days would spend time wondering around picking up nails that l might of dropped while re filling my nail bags and putting them into a container. He all so would pick up the few that might be bent or even really crooked from me having to pull them out while removing part of the existing building.
    He would ask me why I didn’t pick them up and why didn’t I straighten them too. My answer was that I didn’t have time to waste picking up a few cents worth of nails since my time was more value to keep on building to get the job finished. I could just stop at the store later on on the way home from work. We never came together over that but I do understand why he did it. I of course now am a lot like him today as I now take a much closer eye on trying to watch and try to minimize the waste of most everything.
    One thing for sure that you won’t see me doing today is bending over to pick up and straighten a bent nail🤔😬🧐 I’ve had two broken backs so getting bent over to even try to pick up a straight nail is to damn painful for me.😂. Sure do miss my Dad, he was a great Dad and a great nail fixer too.🙁

  17. Dad was born on a farm in rural SE Nevada in 1921, Mom in Springfield Missouri in 26. Both survived hard ttimes as part of big families that fended well for themselves. Mom talked about taking the broken flour sacks her Dad brought home from the mill (management let them, they could not resell them even if rebagged) and baking bread in the wood burning range in their kitchen, then putting them in the bare bottom of her little Radio Flyer wagon, draging it into town and selling the loaves she’d baked for a nickel each. Brought the money home to help with running the home. Ya think SHE uderstood the value of money and the need for hard work? That got passed on. Dad was one that could fix anything. His Mom, my Grandma, told me (on her 100th birthday as we visited) about Dad and one of his brothers, a year apart, decided to remove the engine from a dead Model T Ford lying out in Junk Row behind the barn. They decided to remove the engine take it down, see if they coud figure out what went rwrng. They got the new parts (about three dollars fifty) from the parts house in town. No one was supervising no books, they just figured it out. They got the new parts, reassembled the engine and refitted it. The car ran and served the family for another two years or more.
    The claim that Dad could fix anythng was verified hundreds of times. It was from him I learned about the value of time/money, that I can figure ANYTHING out, and that my hands are the most valuable tools I have, so use them well. Both also instilled deeply into me a love for reading, because they did a lot of that when there was no money for the normal entertainment activities. Books could be borrowed from the library or friends and provided entertainment and opportunities to learn.
    My upbringing with parents like mine has well equipped me to manage through life far better than many of my peers.
    Oh they also passed along the ability to have fun even in the midst of the difficulties of their time. And do so for very little money.

  18. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.
    G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

  19. I’m grateful that I was able to rise out of bed on my own, there was food in the fridge, and I was able to use the bathroom without help.

    Sometimes the most trivial things are the most important.

  20. Why do the nations conspire
    and the peoples plot in vain?
    The kings of the earth rise up
    and the rulers band together
    against the LORD and against his anointed, saying,
    “Let us break their chains
    and throw off their shackles.”
    The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
    the Lord scoffs at them.
    He rebukes them in his anger
    and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
    “I have installed my king
    on Zion, my holy mountain.” NIV Psalm 2:1-6

  21. Folks gripe about how greedy the “One percent” are. Bill Mahr pointed out in order to be in the top one percent worldwide U.S. families have to earn $35,000 a year.

    • Yes, compared to the whole world, all Americans are rich. No American dies from hunger unless food is purposely being kept from them. In America, the wealthy pay most of the taxes. Americans are very generous. We admit 1 million LEGAL immigrants in every year. No other nation admits that many immigrants.

  22. This almost made me cry. Your parents were children of the Great Depression). Do I keep things. Yes. Try this one on for size. At the age of 12,, I ordered a surplus rifle from Kleins in Chicago. My dad approved the order. Last week, we were talking in a local gun store about the changes in American Society, and cursing Lee Harvey Oswald. For those week in math, I’m 86.

    • The more that I study the JFK assassination and surrounding events, the more that I am convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald only fired deliberately missing warning shots, if anything, as part of a diversion designed to incriminate him. The crude surplus Carcano rifle, with an apparently un-floated barrel, a highly suspect scope setup, and an unrefined military trigger, would have made Oswald lucky just to hit “open” diversionary spaces accurately, let alone moving targets. Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura is a total expert on record regarding the unreliability of the Carcano. Timing the totality of events appears to put Oswald beyond culpability of shooting Officer Tippets, too. Add the improbably incidental appearance of an Oswald assassin, with the historically JFK-friendly Marine ALMOST surrounded by police, in a far too probable accompanying coverup assassination. Oswald too likely told the truth when he said that he did not shoot anybody, and that he was being set up. What is hard to believe is that police presented him openly, except that it made him a sitting duck for sudden and final “fact-checking.” Let us at least give Oswald’s innocence the benefit of considerable doubt. Even Ike jumped to conclusions on Oswald’s guilt.

    • “At the age of 12,, I ordered a surplus rifle from Kleins in Chicago.”

      Was your surplus rifle chambered for the 6.5×52 Italian (Mannlicher-Carcano) cartridge?

      “…talking in a local gun store about the changes in American Society, and cursing Lee Harvey Oswald.”

      Lee Harvey Oswald was just the excuse. Even if he had remained in the Soviet Union and never came within 1000 kilometers of President Kennedy, the Gun-Grabbers would have just seized upon some other excuse to trample on the 2nd Amendment. Their goal was to shut down mail order sales of firearms. Any handy reason would do. The acts of Oswald, and others, simply gave them a justification that their propagandists and operatives could use to push their agenda. If not Oswald, it would have been someone else.

      Curse the Firearms-Prohibitionists if you wish to vent. They are the real villains in this story.

    • I respect Indians, but at the same time, fewer of them would starve if they ate animals. I am referring to Hindus.

  24. ‘Folks gripe about how greedy the “One percent” are. Bill Mahr pointed out in order to be in the top one percent worldwide U.S. families have to earn $35,000 a year.’

    And on a Sioux reservation you could do it with about twenty thousand a year.

    The 1% referrs to top 1% in the USA.

    In 2011 the Occupy Wall Street protest movement spread the term 1 percent in reference to America’s richest people. At the time, 1 percent of the population controlled about 30 percent of the country’s wealth.

    • You cannot overestimate the productivity and general wealth of our country that are due to the hardest-working, cleverest people, who are greatly responsible for the golden goose that has laid the golden eggs.

    • “In 2011 the Occupy Wall Street protest movement spread the term 1 percent in reference to America’s richest people.”

      Let us define our terms here:

      1) 1 percent – The wealthiest segment of the U.S. population. However, is that computed by annual income or by net worth? If by income, is it individual income or family income? Same question if it is by net worth. It makes a difference. See this link:

      https://dqydj.com/top-one-percent-united-states/

      2) Occupy Wall Street – This is how Wikipedia describes them:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

      In my personal view, the 1 percent includes what I call the elites (members of Administrative State and other powerful institutions such as the media, academia, big business, big tech, etc.). The 1 percent includes the left-wing rulers (and/or minions) of the Democratic Party. The Party that is, seriously, trying to turn the U.S. into an Americanized version of Communist China.

      So, while this Occupy Wall Street Group was making noise about “bucking the system”, their actions were actually just a welcome distraction for the Administrative State. A method of shouting “squirrel” to further distract and divide the American People. It was camouflage that, on the surface, acted to paint the illusion of the American and Global left as defenders of the “Common Man” and as opponents of the “Establishment”.

      The only problem with this rosy picture? The elites scorn and exploit the “Common Man” every chance they get while actually comprising the “Establishment”. Are we to believe that they were protesting themselves? That the elites, who own Wall Street and control the Government, seriously want change?

      Occupy Wall Street was never intended to be a serious movement or to actually go anywhere. It was just fluff, distraction, and camouflage for the American Left. Once it served it’s useful purpose, the Left “pulled the plug” and it died on the vine.

      And the people who were actually part of the Occupy Wall Street movement? The Operatives (who work for the elites) have gone on to perform other Psychological Operations. The dumb foot solders, no doubt, have moved on in search of other “Protest Movements” that they can join so as to validate their own ego and self-worth. To tell themselves that they are fighting for change when, in actuality, they are foot solders supporting the “Status Quo”.

      Can we say “Useful Idiots”, anyone?

    • I don’t care how much money anyone has, as long as they don’t oppress anyone. I want everyone to be rich, and live pretty much like we do. I especially enjoy our access to food and healthcare. Ideally, immigrants would stay home, and make their countries better places to live. We showed them the way. How come they can’t do it? On the other hand, look at how stupid American city dwellers are. Maybe we will soon become like all those undesirable nations.

  25. My great grandparents came to this country to work in the iron ore mines. They preferred that back-breaking dangerous work to the lives they had in Europe. I am very grateful for the life of plenty that our forebears gave us, however, I strongly believe that we all need to prepare for a future that is not guaranteed by a global American Navy and inexpensive and reliable energy resources.

  26. Ever day is a gift, Mas.

    I try to give the world the best I’ve got every day. Some days I have more to give than others but I still try.

    In the end, all we have is ‘right now’. And right now things are still OK.

Comments are closed.