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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >remembered the tough times of the late thirties and forties. Stuff  
> like one very modest toy for Christmas, Mother-sewn clothes, and  
> "Clean up your plate!"

My great grandmother died in 1969 at the age of 106.  My parents were both 
born in 1927 and when I quizzed them about the Great Depression, they told 
tales 
similar to Gene's above.  My grandparents (born in the 1890's) said that 
being frugal with food, sewing one's own clothes, and very modest holidays 
had 
nothing whatever to do with the Depression, they'd always lived that way.   
The 
thing, they said, was that during the depression no one had any money 
(compare 
this to the bruhaha now of days that all our troubles are that there is no 
credit).  So I asked my great-grandmother about that and she said, "That had 
nothing to do with the Depression, child, no one in these hills ever had any 
money!"

The picture I got was that clicking forward in the generations it was the 
expectation that was the source of discontent rather than actual deprivation. 
 In 
the post-War for Southern Independence era no one expected to be using money 
in their day to day goings on.  You could go about your daily work weeks on 
end and never have silver cross your palm. But when the expectation was that 
anything you might need or want could be purchased and then the money dried 
up, 
it was the expectation of that which produced the feeling of deprivation.

Now we (collectively) have gotten ourselves into the unwise position that not 
so much having money is they way we conduct business and everyday affairs, 
but rather it is having credit.  The current panic is over having no more 
credit.
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