The Great Depression

Fireside chats….. Its 1933, And i am sitting in my living room with my wife and two kids. Luckily i still have a job with this great depression going on. I get paid very little, but working at the Browning Firearms Factory gives me enough money to pay the bills on my house. We have lost a lot, Our car, tv, and all home appliances. The only thing we have left is our radio. So every day when i get home from work we sit around and listen to the fireside chat. President Roosivelt gives us the only hope we have. He makes it seem like we have a bright future ahead of us, and hes going to solve all our problems that we face in the great depression. We were a wealthy family before all this happened. I had my own gun shop, my wife cooked steaks every Friday night, and my two sons started on there football team at school. One, my oldest, got a scholarship to Duke, to play fullback. I was looking foward to watching him play every Friday night. But i cant even afford one semester there now..

The fireside chat is playing in our living room, my brother and I are in the back yard playing football. Its very dry, i have not seen a drop or rain in forever. Its so dry and dusty, i cant even see all the letters on my duke jacket that i got last semester when i got offered a scholarship. That we could not afford of course. My football is slick and cracked. I cant seem to round up enough money for a new one. All of a sudden, my brother throws the ball over my head. As i turn around to go get it, i see a huge black cloud in the sky. It frightens me… I run in the house with my brother as fast as possible to see my parents gathered around the radio. I describe the big black cloud i saw and they tell me about the message Roosevelt  gave on todays fireside chat. Its called a dust bowl. Apparently they happen quite often. Today was a day that i will never forget.

Who is this FDR? I asked mom. I hear him talking all this nonsense everyday on these fireside chats. He claims that hes going to turn this county around and create jobs. I mean my god, we live in a old tobacco barn. My dad is the only one with a job. He makes 4 dollars a day working at the local factory that makes radios. That is the only reason we have a radio. I have worn the same two shirts for the last three years. How can we go from living like this to “A house on a hill with a white picked fence”? It makes no sense to me. FDR has got to be a fake. Hes going doing some good things, but its going to take a lot more then that. I pray that FDR is more then just talk. If he backs it up, we will be just fine.

Here i am “riding the rails”. Not knowing where i will be tomorrow, not knowing where i will sleep tonight. My father and I left the family for a little while to try to scrap up a little money. The past 3 weeks we have made seven dollars combined. We stand in these long lines to try to pick up a shift at factories. After we work or get turned down. We move on to the next town. I miss my mama and little brother. They are surviving ,but they are also starving. We often stop and catch fish to eat. Because we cant afford food, or a drink. We boil water from streams to make it drinkable. I was a multi-sport athlete in school with a job. I was 185 pounds. Six months into this depression all i know is work and i am 135 pounds soaking wet. All i ask is for this to end. I just want a home. A place with my family, with a meal on the table and a dog barking in the yard.