I went into town today to satisfy my craving for the Foxtown Coffee Shop’s French fries. When I got there I couldn’t go in without stopping to talk to the two older gentlemen who were obviously taking a break from their scooter trip.
Dick, age 72, and Mick, age 80, proved, after just a little prompting, to have a fountain of funny stories between them about life during the Great Depression.
Here they are in all their glory; Dick, left, age 72, and Mick on the right, age 80:
Mick is rolling on a Yamaha Zuma he bought new, while Dick’s ride was a much abused $200 newspaper special. Both machines have been modified with home built back supports for their several times weekly wanders, and behind the back supports their carry baskets hold rain gear, tire repair kits, gas, oil, and a cellular phone.
They set out early in the morning so on this sixty degree day they were sitting in the shade so as to not overheat; long johns are still in effect around here, for them and for me. Both of their wives are still alive and they’re each on a day long leash – aging eyes mean they’re required to be home by sundown.
Dick is the more talkative of the two, with Mick chiming in here and there, supporting his various points. Born in 1935, Dick began working at age eleven, as did my father, and he worked in a produce, just like my dad. He relates that he was in a semi-private hospital room last year when he overheard a conversation from the other side. He pulled the curtain a bit, looked, and discovered his room mate was a fellow he’d worked with as a child. They’d not seen each other in fifty nine years and had a nice time catching up. Dick and the other man both went home two days later ... and his long lost coworker died less than twenty four hours after leaving the hospital. This was related without a tinge of sadness; after a certain age one falls asleep well aware that not waking up is a possibility. Life moves slower in some ways, but more urgently. Sunny, riding days must be taken when they come around.
Mick had a bit to say about work ethic and the nature of employment. He clapped one bicep and said "In the old days you had to have muscle to have a good job. Nobody got paid for pushing a button." I agreed with them and I think they were both surprised by my background; like all farm kids I helped my father as soon as I could carry things for him, animal chores were after school duties starting around age eight or nine, and by twelve I was working off the farm whenever I got the chance. We went on for a while about the economy and how things might change again, just as they did in the 1930s. They seemed nonplussed by this; they’ve seen hard times before, they both still garden a bit, and gas for the scooters doesn’t cost all that much. Life, for them, will likely continue much as it has.
Both of them echo my parents: You kids have nothing to complain about. Walking to school two miles, through the snow, uphill both directions? I asked and they both laughed – I heard that quite often from my father. People were violent then without being murderous; if someone needed a punch in the mouth those were easily available. Nobody threatened anybody with a lawyer. I’d like this rule to be in effect just one day a week ... I’d hunt up Karl Rove and black both of his eyes, the little miscreant, and that is the kindest, most spiritual thing I could do for America.
Food was different then. "If you say down at the table and you didn’t like the squirrel leg on your plate you went to bed hungry." That’s a direct quote from Dick. My dad used to talk about tomato sandwiches – a slice of tomato, a slice of bread, and with nine kids nothing was left. Food is changing for us, I think back to what these guys remember as kids. The best financial blog on the internet today had a nice write up about the godawful mess transnational corporations have made of the global food supply. One can only hope not too many starve as the Ginormous Banking Enema of 2008 does its work.
Money was real in those years. I wished for, but did not have handy, any of the old silver I’ve started collecting. I think we’ll be using this as a medium of exchange again before too long. The dollar is pretty much in freefall, currently held up by the tacit agreement of those holding it that they’d better buy something useful with it before it gets devalued due to the inevitable debt repudiation coming from Bush’s adventure in Iraq.
Nothing was said but the marine tattoo peeping out near Mick’s left wrist told the story; enlisting at seventeen in either 1944 or 1945, because that is what every able bodied man did. Out in two years, just like my father, as no one saw Korea coming. His generation walked through fire, economic first, then geopolitical. We’ve had it soft, the Boomers first, then Generation X. My son, he is going to see everything Mick saw and then some ...
I must say I am quite impressed by their rides. I had a little Honda Express when I was a kid – one of the benefits of getting out and working. I got put off two wheeled transport my sophomore year in college; a girl I was quite taken with was killed riding on a bike and buried on my twentieth birthday. I had a Suzuki GS750 myself then, but I left it sit for a decade, then gave it to a friend. I really wish I had the economic and cultural opportunities I see here at farmerchuck’s coupled with the crazy cheap property prices and closeness to my kids that Iowa brings all in one physical location. I’d hustle to pay off my little Nissan Versa and add a balloon tire Yamaha TW200 to the stable, using it for transport at least half the year.
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I’ve really been thinking a lot about where I live, where I work, and whatnot. The kids are in Omaha, I’ve been living three hours away in northwest Iowa, and now here I am on the road in Massachusetts. It looks like I might be traveling around a bit – while writing this I’m chatting with a fellow in San Francisco, and if he buys this farm he is looking at in Washington State I might go there next and help him get things set up. I’m wondering if the best thing might be converting my little 4’ x 7’ trailer for camper duty. Here it is with a roughly 1,200 pound load last summer when I was moving.
I’m thinking I’d get half of a 4’ diameter grain bin and cut it to fit inside the rails. I’d use heavy, pressure treated plywood for the floor and then I’d insulate the inside. Being out of the wind in an insulated hard sided shelter I should be able to easily withstand freezing temperatures – I do that now in the poorly insulated passenger compartment of my car. There’d be a good bit of work getting this ready, but it would be a joy once completed. I’ve looked a bit at popup campers and I don’t think they fit – they’re definitely fair weather friends and I don’t want the setup, teardown, or wind load they’d bring. I’m still a bit confused about where to put my stuff. I’d still want the bike and there is a good bit of gear that I take along. I could get a propane stove and carry a gas canister. I’d need some storage space – maybe the grain bin shell would be fastened to the foot high railing all around – complicates construction considerably, but gives me a nice "trunk" underneath? Or maybe I split the space up the middle ... or a hanging ‘tube’ overhead?
The Okies, they did this. I think a lot about the Joad family from Grapes of Wrath, which I recently reread. Them in their 1925 Dodge, all of them crammed in there, making their way from Oklahoma to California, old folks dying along the way, some of the young men just drifting away, and the horrors of the abusive employers when they finally did find work. I hope my life won’t be like that, the abusive employer part, and as for the moving around on the cheap I can think of no better form of adventure a fellow can have on twenty dollars a day.
So ... the important points here are these:
Contentment: If you’re breathing, you’re neither too warn nor too cold, and you’ve eaten in the last day you’re ahead of two thirds of the world. Act like it.
Engagement: There is going to be a lot of sniveling about the financial downturn, but that won’t change anything. Suck it up and enjoy what you’ve got.
Flexibility: Corporations make structure and they’re all on life support right now. Just break out and do human things on a human scale.