It was the "Roaring Twenties" the era of jazz, riches, new inventions and bright optimism. Then, on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression -- the worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world, lasting from the end of 1929 until the early 1940s.

The song of this era would be "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime." With banks failing and businesses closing, more than a quarter of America's workforce became unemployed and a heavy dark blanket of despair seemed to weigh down the planet.

Like the rest of us, younger readers know what I am talking about.  They learned it in history class.  The best history lessons, however, are not found in books.  We learn those from one-another.

People like my Mom and Dad who grew up in the Great Depression have a different outlook on life than we children of later eras who grew up watching our lives unveiled on Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch and Beverly Hills 90210.

Even if they have amassed great fortunes, Children of the Depression and children raised by Children of the Depression look at things differently.  They squander not.

If you want to know if a family member or friend was affected by the Great Depression, you no longer need to ask them.  No, Antique Talk has spared you these embarrassing questions.  Simply by employing these easy axioms, you will know.

You know someone was affected in some way by the Great Depression if ….

• Manual pencil sharpeners are employed instead of electric sharpeners and no more of the pencil whittled down than is necessary to exact a writable point.
• They happily finish all peas, creamed corn, Brussels sprouts, radishes, spinach, liver and anything else that is served at mealtime.
• They hoard junk like the weathervane on the old barn, furniture going back four generations, beat-up old toys, baseball cards, even lamps that pre-date electricity.
• They're popular with antique dealers.
• You know grandma may have been a child of the Depression if she ever brings up stuff about "starving children in India" when plates are left unfinished.
• If hundreds of carefully saved rubber bands in the desk drawer (in a twister-tied plastic bag) have faded in color and begun to lose their elasticity
• If a television repairman is called instead of replacing a 10+ year old set.
• If the old television antennae taken down from the house years ago is still carefully stored away in a corner of the attic because it still might be of use someday.
• If used paper towels, especially after cleaning the windows, are uncrumpled, flattened out and carefully left to dry in a sunny spot.
• If paper and plastic grocery bags are stored away in numbers exceeding 100.
• If the Ivory soap bar in the bathroom is used until it is smaller than a postage stamp.  Tiny soap pieces stuck together – please not in a stocking – to make a large-again mass of soap automatically qualifies them for the list.
• If they reuse aluminum foil.
• If strong grimaces are produced when the clerk at the movie theatre asks for more the $8.00.  The words, "that's ridiculous" increases likelihood.
• If your well-to-do grandparents still keep 15 cartons of Carnation Instant Milk and 5 cans of Spam in their cupboards, they were probably influenced by the Great Depression.
• If the idea of employing a manicurist, someone else to mow your own yard, house cleaning services, a masseuse, or, God-forbid -- a personal trainer at the health club -- brings shudders and occasionally blackouts.
• If a very strong suggestion that "gas is cheaper at the other station" is made even though the price difference is less than 2 cents per gallon and it is a nightmare to get to, your backseat driver has probably been influenced in some way by the Great Depression.
• If they occasionally shop for toys and other such gifts at Goodwill stores and Church bazaars, not to save money but because you can get "so much more for your money."
• If Readers Digest Condensed Books, National Geographic magazines and half filled Green Stamp books and other such items are stored away, completely filling up an attic.
• If they are constantly nagging you to turn off your computer when you aren't using it to "save on electricity."
• If they speed up past the pre-made pie crusts at the grocery store exceeding 30 miles per hour while employing the shopping cart as a walker.

Children of the Depression

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