Remembering History

Across the entrance to the Norlin Library on the C. U. campus back in the thirties were the words of George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Those of us who can remember the thirties all too vividly, are seeing some frightening similarities to today.

It was the decade of the great depression, the election of Franklin Roosevelt, the dust bowl and the beginning of social security. It was the decade we started slowly on the road back from bread lines and despair.

The population of the U. S. was a little over 123 million in 48 states. The average salary was $1368 and unemployment rate was 25%. The number of unemployed reached 13 million. In March, 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt took office, the country was in desperate straits. He scared the daylights out of all of us when he declared a four-day bank holiday. But during that time Congress came up with the Banking Act of 1933. That stabilized the banking industry and restored people's faith in the banking system by putting the federal government behind it.

Some things change, but college kids don't. They are in a private world of their own. I was in C. U. those first four years of the decade, and in our self-absorption we were barely aware of the rest of the country and its financial crisis. Tuition was $22 a quarter and board and room was $25 a month. Somehow my folks managed to come with that but it was a long time before I realized how hard it had been for them.

But the dust storms I do remember. Severe drought hit the midwestern and southern plains. As the crops died, the 'black blizzards" begin. Dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed land began to blow -- and blow -- and blow.

In 1935, experts estimated that 850,000,000 tons of topsoil had blown off the Southern Plains during the course of the year. I was living in Denver that year, and I remember that most of Kansas blew into Colorado. Probably there were even dust particles that crossed the mountains and there still may be little bits of Topeka in Grand Junction.

There were days when I could not see across the street. April 14, 1935 is remembered as Black Sunday -- the worst "black blizzard" of the dust bowl.

In the fall of 1939 the rains came -- and so did the war in Europe.

But in spite of the depression and the dust storms and all the turmoil in the world, we did manage to have a pretty exciting and entertaining decade.

Entertainment had to be cheap. Stamp collecting became popular and Parker Brothers came out with Monopoly. We could at least have lots of pretend money.

For fifty cents you could dance all evening to Glenn Miller and the other big bands at the Trocadero in Elitch's. That's when Elitch's was in north Denver. I have trouble understanding today's popular music, because our favorite songs were "String of Pearls" "Mood Indigo." And they always ended up with a slow version of "Goodnight Sweetheart." In those days you usually said "Goodnight" instead of "Your place or mine?"

Movies were cheap and strictly escapist entertainment. it was Hollywood's golden age. Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Shirley Temple, the Marx Brothers -- laughter and romantic sighs, not tears. And we had "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Gone With the Wind."

If we couldn't even afford a movie, the radio was with us -- Jack Benny and Gracie Allen, Amos and Andy, Fred Allen and "The Shadow".

I found one of my favorite poets, Ogden Nash, and the kids were introduced to Dr. Seuss. Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" was perhaps most definitive book of the decade.

We lived our lives and had fun. But over us all hung the depression and the dust-- and the war, over there. Sound familiar?