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My grandmother had to sign for my father to join the Home Guard in the days before World War I. All his friends were joining and he did too. He was still a teenager fighting through the trenches of France and the battle of Argonne Forest. Pneumonia was rampant at the time and millions died of it. He had been gassed in France and then caught pneumonia, having to stay in the hospital while his comrades took troop ships for home. When he did get aboard ship for the trip, he applied a talent he had developed. He was good at playing poker. As he told me in later years, “No matter how much you shuffle the cards they will still remain in a pattern.” He had a good memory. Five-card stud was his game, one card down and four up. If he saw a card turned up he remembered from the previous hand, he judged by the person betting what the hole card should be. It paid off for him. He won $5,000 on the trip home, during a time when you could buy a new Ford for $700 or a home for maybe $1,000. Translated to today’s value, the $5,000 was a fortune. He enjoyed the 1920s and business flourished, operating a restaurant and a pool room. He was able to give my mother and older brother a nice home and comfortable lifestyle. I hadn’t joined the family at that time. When the stock market crashed in 1929, he was faced with loss of cash flow, friends who couldn’t pay him what they owed and taxes. His best friend came up with a solution. If my father would just sign everything over to him, he would take care of the taxes. My father trusted his friend, believing he was wiser since he was older. My mother and father lost their home and he had no income. Families stuck together then. They moved in with my grandmother and two of his sisters, one a widow and one unmarried. That’s where I was born in 1932, delivered by my grandmother. In later years, my father said, “My first reaction was to feel sorry for myself. Then I realized that wasn’t doing any good and I needed to go to work.” He took a job on a Civilian Construction Corps camp, working on one in Pennsylvania at Valley Forge. Adding to the stress was the death of my older brother, who had contracted diphtheria. Those were the days before the word entitlement came into the mainstream of social concepts. No one assumed the government owed them a paycheck for doing nothing. Social Security didn’t exist until 1935. My father had never had to do hard labor before in his life, but he learned to be a plumber, working as a helper to an older man. Myfather probably never weighed more than 135 pounds in his life. I can still him walking down the unpaved sidewalk to my grandmother’s house where she babysat me. Both parents were working. My mothre was a looper in a knitting mill. For the uninitiated, that’s the person who sews the toe in the sock. I got an oatmeal cookie when they came home or sometimes a comic book, which I was desperately trying to read. My father felt everyone should own a piece of land. With his sister as a partner, he bought a 75-acre farm for $1,700. We never went hungry. Neither did anyone in his family or my mother’s. There were always several gardens on the farm. Meat was cured and saved, vegetables canned and preserved. He went through a war, a depression with the loss of everything and had to learn a profession which was different from any he had ever known. He didn’t ask for government help or assistance. He relied on himself. I never had to face the depths of financial loss he did. But, like most people, I have had to check the piggy bank at times. Once when a publishing venture folded, I bought a truck and hauled logs. Never felt better physically in my life. Another time I learned to drive a taxicab. People can work a lifetime for a major company and suddenly find their cherished security is gone. Even the major corporations can’t always follow up on the pensions they promised. There is only one security we can count on. Ourselves. We must rely on whatever skills we have, the confidence in ourselves. If a person is an artist and can’t sell his paintings, there is always a house that needs painting. If a person is a jet pilot and loses the job, there may be a truck that needs to be taken across country. In a necessity, we can always adjust to a different work and income climate. Recessions and prosperity always swing like a pendulum on a clock. Our security lies in our own ability and our confidence in ourselves. First of all, though, it never helps to sit down and feel sorry for ourselves.
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