Depression Days

[Diane Amberg]

Do some of you remember when "oleo'' first came out, it was white and in a squarish plastic pouch? The butter states lobbied to keep it from looking like butter. It had a little dot of food coloring in one corner. I remember one of my early jobs was to knead the color all through the softened oleo until it was completley yellow, and then reshape it into a block before we rechilled it. Which reminds me, do the state fairs out there still do a butter cow.? I always loved that thing. I could never figure why it was done, but I liked it. 

[kdfrawg]

The oleo-margarine thing sort of depended on where you lived. In some of the big dairy states, like Wisconsin, when that product first appeared it was green, and sometimes blue. It's surprising what sort of legislation a large dairy lobby could get passed. Most of those laws only lasted a couple of years, and the makers were allowed to at least make it look like butter, although there was not much they could do to make it taste like butter.

[flo]

I go back further than that.  Oleo used to be in a l# brick than you put in a large bowl and had an envelope of yellow powder that you sprinkled on it and then worked it in.  If you were in a hurry you just used it white.

[Diane Amberg]

   Very interesting.You are older than I thought!    Daddy was a rubber, plastics and elastomers chemist and used to have some interesting comments about "fake food." He couldn't find anything obviously dangerous in it, but he wondered what the really long term effects would be. He had real reservations about the eventual effects of antibiotics and steroids on food animals. Taking care of TB in cows is one thing, but now all this stuff is showing up in our water supply. Speaking of such, someone told me once that Armadillos could be carriers of Leprosy. Now that they have moved north to Kansas, is there any truth to that?

[flo]

Diane, leprosy I don't know but have been told that their "hide" or whatever you call it, does harber a lot of parasites, germs, and anything else that cares to live there.  They are a nasty nasty animal and wish they would all go back south and keep going when they get there.  The comment about "age" will be overlooked THIS TIME 

[Roma Jean Turner]

Iremember my Uncle Wilbur telling the story of standing in a long line of men waiting to get a job.   It was ditch digging and it paid !.00 for the day.  He and Aunt Evelyn's first child was just a baby and they were down to  feeding her Kayro syrup in water in a bottle.

As he was standing there he saw a man get up out of a ditch and leave the tool behind.  He ran, jumped in the ditch and said he worked as hard as he could, hoping at the end of
the day he would get paid something.  He got the  !.00 with no questions asked.

[kdfrawg]

My dad was born in 1920 and orphaned in 1931. That was not an easy life. But it sure did give him a work ethic, and an understanding of what was important, and the good sense to think before ever complaining. That was a horrible time in our history, but it turned out a group of Americans that could deal with pretty much anything. I have always thought that the people hardened by the depression were the only reason we were able to win WWII.

On a different, but related, note: there is a wonderful recent book about the dust bowl in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. It is fascinating and extremely well-written. I was just blown away by it, and ended it with a tiny tear in my eye. The title is The Worst Hard Time and it was written by Timothy Egan, ISBN 0618773479.

[Roma Jean Turner]

That's a good point about WWII.  I remember seeing Bob Dole interviewed once.  The interviewer was talking about his bravery.  But Dole said that growing up in the Depression he never had anything to wear that wasn't a hand me down and sometimes no shoes.  He laughed and said, at the time he enlisted, 3 meals a day, brand new cloths and shoes just sounded like such a great deal.

[kdfrawg]

That would be my Dad to a tee. He got all of that, which was a rarity for him, plus all the heavy equipment that he could drive, since he was a Seabee.

[Diane Amberg]

 Frawg, you were "blown away by it?" A book on the dust bowl? B-O-O-O!!!!!