Belle Glade, Florida

To me, this is the saddest picture we have seen all week. The picture was taken in Belle Glade, Florida. It shows two of the eleven children of a migrant family. The older boy is caring for the younger one, who has been sick and lost lots of weight. The family is stuck in Belle Glade, because the parents lost the car. I really wish that I could hear the story of how their lives played out . . . were they able to overcome this poverty and lead happy lives?

Dalhart, Texas

One of the things that made the Great Depression so bad is that right in the middle of one of the worst financial crisis in the US's history, there was a drought of epic proportion. The rains just stopped. The picture above was taken near Dalhart, Texas, and you can see the conditions were such that farming or ranching was impossible.

Poor Family

Today's picture was taken in 1938 in Central Ohio. it shows a desperately poor man and his child. notice how the exterior of his home is covered by cardboard to serve as a wind break and some modest level of insulation. When I was growing up in the 60's people were still living in houses like this. The little town I grew up in had a Barrio, and it was filled with this sort of scene. 

Mound Bayou

Today's picture was taken in Mound Bayou, Louisiana. The picture was taken in 1939.

Migrant's Son

Good Monday morning to you all. Hope you enjoyed your weekend, and are all fired up to get back to work today. On OPOD this week, we will be looking at the Great Depression. Today's picture is from 1939, and it shows the son of Migrant Workers eating on the side of the road. As I mentioned yesterday, I believe that the Great Depression built a type of character that is sorely missing today.

Another thing I find interesting in studying the Great Depression is to go back and look at the Roaring 20's. Wow, those folks were completely caught off guard, and were oblivious to the disaster that was about to hit them. People in the 1920's had no clue how fast it would hit, how bad it would get, and how long it would last. In studying the 20's you really don't see anyone raising the alarm. One of the characteristics that can really be seen in the 20's is the Normalcy Bias. This is a mental state where people assume that everything will be OK, even when the signs are pointing to disaster. If you get a chance, do some research on Normalcy Bias. Lots of interesting articles on the internet. The other interesting and related theme is the theory of Black Swans. Both are interesting topics to help understand how things went wrong so quickly in the 1930's.

The Great Depression

Well, we had some great fun yesterday with the Mystery Person Contest. Lots of good guesses, but in the end no correct answers, so by the rules of the game, I am the winner. I updated yesterday's post, and you can read about the Mystery Woman. Now, back to this week. This will be Great Depression Week. We have not looked at the Great Depression in some time. The picture above was taken in 1938 in Jarreau, Louisiana. Children are waiting in the car for their parents.

I really enjoy studying the Great Depression. The angle I like to look at is not so much how bad it was, but how much character it built. I think it set the stage and helped define America's greatest generation. This was a generation of Doers and Savers. We have become a generation of Watchers and Spenders.

Domestic Update:

You all have been asking for a Domestic Update, so here goes. First, that peacock is definitely up to something. Now that I have gone back to work, his project out behind Chickie Town has resumed. If you look at the picture below, it appears that he has constructed some sort of large concrete slab.

I am not sure what the intended purpose is, but I noticed in the corner the initials T.D. has been marked in the concrete. The slab appears to be about 40X40 in size.

I have been busy as well. This last week I put in the first part of a fruit orchard. I had 2 18 wheel truckloads of dirt moved in, spread the dirt out, and put in 6 trees. I have 3 peach, 2 apple, and 1 apricot trees. The trees were bare root, so they do not show up well in the picture.

In the bean barn, my lettuce crop is getting going. I plant one row of lettuce each week, so it will mature over time. I did not want to plant the whole system at once, as  day would come that 350 heads of lettuce would be ready on the same day. Below, you can see the first few rows have been planted, and the first lettuce is starting to look good.

The tomatoes continue to do well. I really enjoy being able to go out in the middle of winter and pick ripe tomatoes off the vine. The vines are continuing to produce much more than we can eat.

I would really like to figure out how to have a nice corn patch and black eyed pea patch. I would likely have to have a lot of dirt moved in for that to happen. I worry that the peacocks and chickies would eat the seedlings before they had a chance to come up. So, I am still pondering how to do the corn and pea patch.

Dust Bowl

Today's picture shows the son of a farmer in Cimarron County, Oklahoma. It was taken in 1936. When people think of the Great Depression, I think they primarily think of the stock market crash, and resulting unemployment. Sometimes I think we forget at the same time, we were hit with the dust bowl. During the dust bowl it pretty much stopped raining over lots of the parts of the country. Without rain, it was impossible for farmers or ranchers to survive. So, lots of the people that were see in the migrant camps and moving across the country with their families in cars were former Oklahoma farmers and ranchers who had lost their rain.

Child of the Depression

This picture was taken in 1935 and shows a tent of a migrant farm family. There is a small child in the tent. I am sure it would have been hard to raise a family like this, but at the same time I have to believe it was an incredible character building exercise.

Fixing Flat Tire

Dust Bowl Week continues with this picture from 1935. It shows a couple of men changing a tire on a Model T. Changing a tire on a Model T is actually very easy. The car was light, so easy to jack up. Then there are four nuts around the outside rim. The tires are lightweight, so easy to get on and off. Now days they put the lug nuts on too tight at the factory, and if you have a flat, the little Micky Mouse lug wrench has almost no chance or loosening the lug nuts, and hence you are stranded.

We had lots of spirited discussion in the comments yesterday. I enjoyed reading your thoughts and your experiences. For those of you who have been hit by a New Reality recently, our prayers are with you. Actually, I have always been very conservative in my spending. When I was in High School I had a lot of trouble finding a job. Minimum wage at the time was $2.25. I tried to get a summer job in the Cotton Gin doing maintenance, but they said they did not have a spot. I told them that I would work for $1 an hour if they would hire me. I told them I would not come back and ask for more money, but that if I did a good job, maybe next summer they would bring me back at minimum wage. They gave me the job. The Gin had no ventilation or air conditioning. With it 100 degrees outside, it got up around 120 in the Gin. I had to crawl up into the machinery, and take off the old cutting blades, and replace with new ones. There were tens of thousands of these little blades to be changed. If your hand slipped on the wrench, your hand would run into the little blades, and really cut your hand up. It was a hot and very unpleasant job. The funny thing is that to this very day, I still put purchases into terms of how many hours in the Gin it would take to buy something. So, if I am eating out, and a soft drink is $2, I think that was 2 hours of labor in the Gin, and I have a water instead.

Migrant Worker

Today's picture was taken in 1935 in a migrant labor camp in California. The people were living in small tents and shacks, while working in the fields. During the Great Depression, these families were sometimes charged ridiculous rates just for a few feet of ground to set their tents up on. It was often the case that it was a huge struggle to make just enough for a little food.

I wonder what people would do today in these circumstances. I wonder if they would actually go out and work 12 hours in the field, or if they would just sit on the side of the road and starve.

Fixing Car

The Dust Bowl week continues here at OPOD with this picture. It was taken in 1935 in a migrant worker camp in California. The men look to be rebuilding the engine in their car.

Have you noticed that it has gotten to where people pretty much can not work on cars these days? Due to the complexity, electronics, and specialized equipment required, pretty much all repairs require a trip to the shop. I was never very mechanically inclined, but when I was in High School most of my friends could rebuild an engine, transmission, or carburetor. They learned this by working on cars with their Dad. It is too bad that this tradition has been lost today.

Dust Bowl

This week we will be looking at a series of pictures from the American Dust Bowl. I found some pictures I had not seen before, and thought I would feature them this week. The picture above was taken in 1935 and shows a destitute family at a relocation camp in California.

It is amazing to me how we appear to have forgotten the lessons of the Great Depression. In the business class I teach, I am trying to teach to students about investing. On the first day of class, I set each student up with a stock brokerage account. The account works exactly like an etrade or ameritrade account, only they are investing "play" money. Each student is given $100,000 in the account. At the start of each class period, while I am doing roll, the students research companies, and then buy or sell stocks. There is a master page, where they can compare how they are doing vs. the other students. As the year goes on, I get into all the details of investing; picking companies, reading balance sheets, understanding earnings reports and so forth. This week, we were talking about how different things would affect the market. As a whole, the class felt the economy would probably be getting worse before it gets better. We then discussed companies that might do well in a sinking economy. Walmart came up as a company that might do relatively well if things were tough in the economy. I then made the point that if things were tough, it would be more likely that someone would buy a $15 pair of jeans at walmart, than a $150 pair of jeans at Aeropostale. At this point one student said, "I would never wear Walmart jeans". I tried to explain that conditions could dictate that . . . for example, if a family member lost a job. The response was that under no circumstances would they wear Walmart jeans. The other students jumped in, agreeing that there would never be any circumstances under which they would be caught dead in Walmart jeans. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to make them see that not only could conditions arise in which you would wear Walmart jeans, but they might be such that you felt lucky to have pants at all. While I really have a good group of students this year, even with them, I was unable to make them see that designer jeans were not an inalienable right.