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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> My point is this, scarcely seventy years ago, still within living memory,
> communities were equiped to withstand economic adversity even during the 
> time of
> this narrative which was the heigth of the  Great Depression.

I like to tell this story of my Grandfather in Clark County Missouri.  It 
was the late twenties and the area was under a severe drought.  He collected 
all the money he could get his hands on then went to Kansas City shopping 
for a well drilling rig.  He had only enough money to get to KC and buy the 
rig.  My grandmother packed him a huge bag of food.  He took the railroad to 
KC where he bought the well rig.  He had no money for a hotel so he slept on 
the rig in the rail yard and when it was taken north he rode on the flat car 
with the rig.  That well drilling rig paid for itself the first year and as 
a kid in the 50s I helped my father operate that same rig.

Don Bowen      KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html