Damn, The Depression Sucked

I am of a generation whose grandparents grew up in the Depression. Now you know, most people really love their grandparents. My maternal grandfather -- Papa -- taught me to play golf, used to always have M&M's in the desk/bureau thing, would buy me Coke's and said lots of great things like "You want a dollar? You're not worth that for your hide & tallow," "He who does not tooteth is own horn, the same shall not be tooteth" and his true masterwork "People in hell want ice water, too." For a while, when I was 11 or 12, he was probably my best friend. My maternal grandmother -- Grandma -- has always been a very bright light to me. She would drive really slow, go to the 7-11 every Sunday to buy the Sunday Chronicle, ate All Bran a lot. Every once in a while, she would say things that would say things that, as her grandchild, would make your hair stand up to realize that, well, Grandma had enjoyed her youth. Like the time she told my sister TFON that, woo, my Papa had been awfully good-looking in his Navy uniform and they used to swing on a few chandeliers. (Don't know about that spelling, but I don't care.)

Anyway, one thing that I think our generation finds pretty humorous about our grandparents is the way they horde things, tuck things away, worry a lot about money when they don't need to, all because of the Depression. When my grandma started to slide some, my mom and my aunt The Nurse were reviewing her finances and discovered a savings account that my grandma hadn't ever mentioned. The Muse's grandma continued to knit dishtowels until quite recently. The Muse's mom will call her and tell her something that her grandmother did and the Muse and I will laugh about how "oh well, she grew up in the Depression."

After having had many yucks about our grandparents and the Depression, I read a book about the Depression and FDR recently and, boy howdy, I'm going to try not to laugh about the Depression anymore.

None of this is any great insight, but, jeez, there was a stretch in late 1932 and early 1933 when basically the banks all over the country were just straight out closing. You know, you think you have money in the bank, but, oh sorry, your bank just closed and you don't have any money any more. Right before FDR took office in March 1933, it was a very real possibility that ALL of the banks in the country were going to crater. D'oh!

I now promise to never make fun of anyone's grandparents washing Ziploc bags ever again.