Making Ends Meet...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/garden/02depression.html?pagewanted=1&8dpc&_r=1

This article, written by Joyce Walder, was really interesting to me. Walder writes about the lives of a few random, completely average, people during the Great Depression. Each person interviewed tells of their life and there are so many small, random, interesting stories thrown in, it make’s what they’re talking about come to life. Especially with the state we are in now, people are warning of another Depression-like era for the US. These stories, of how these people and their families survived, tell of things I can’t even imagine happening in the present day. They all talk about making things themselves, recycling and reusing everything, from old towels to parts of chickens usually thrown out. Today, I can’t imagine a majority of the US’s population knitting their own socks, or leaving food on their door steps for people passing through, as one story tells of.
This article, or rather more of a collection of stories, makes me feel conflicted about our present situation. On one hand, it is reassuring to hear of people surviving a situation that sounds at least worse than where we are right now. Then again, it worries me that I can’t really see anyone I have known to be as thrifty as them, to recycle everything and accept that they have lost so much. I feel like if things do get as bad as they were back then, it will be more difficult to get things back up, because most people now are so accustomed to not having to cut corners or deny themselves, like the people in these stories had to do. These stories were really interesting and offered a great insight to what life was really like back then, everyone had their own little story to share that made them different, yet still similar, to the other’s interviewed.