I remember when I was a little kid, maybe 3 or 4, I was visiting my great-grandmother, who lived on County Line Rd in Indy. She lived in a tiny house in an urban neighborhood that she bought in the 30s and where she raised 8 kids and buried 2 husbands.
She was the kind of grandmother that had one of those old black heavy telephones from Indiana Bell on a stand by her front door and who still called the formal living room the “front room.”
And the front room wasn’t at all for living. It was that room that had the nice couch and her curio cabinet, she had what seemed like hundreds of glass figurines, bells I think…we just called them “pretties.” I was never allowed in this room, but sometimes, when my mom sat on the couch with grandma and looked through photo albums filled with pictures of my grandfather during the depression, I was allowed the sit on the floor in front of the case and look in at the precious collection my grandmother kept.
And the only TV she owned as an old black and white and sat on a wheeled cart in the TV room at the end of a long brown plaid couch. And on one distinct occasion, I remember sitting at the kitchen table, looking at pictures of my family during the 30s and 40s, in old town Indy before the airport, and listening to the Nightly News report about the Gulf War. And I remember, in my 4 year old innocence, at first being fascinated that I would be living during a war. See, grandfather went to Korea, and so did all of his brothers. My dad was in the Navy just after Vietnam. I had an uncle in active Army Reserve duty, in a time before they sent the Guard to war. So, I had heard stories about war and the military my whole life. But I had never seen war. And I remember listening to the reports about Desert Storm, and then listening to my Grandmother tells stories of ration stamps during World War II, and being scared of the idea of attack but thinking that I had gotten that one notch on my belt early on. That I had my experience with war, and gotten it out of the way. Unfortunately, this now isn’t the case.
I could go on and on about my thoughts on the war. List people I know who have gone to Iraq, name wives who I know who have lost husbands. And I could then go on and on about the current financial crisis that is occurring with our country and my thoughts on its effects. Talk about the evils I think our president has forced upon us and how we will never be the same as a country.
But instead, I’m not going to say anything other than I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to even imagine is going to come of all of this. After this financial thing settles or we end the war or don’t; if we elect another president or if we end up forfeiting all of our rights as citizens–I don’t know.
All I do know is that I have never been so afraid of my future in context of things I have no control of, and think of my grandmother, who survived 2 world wars, Vietnam, and The Great Depression. But I can say one thing–I’m not living out of my car and buying bread with stamps like she did in the 30s, but at least she had the reassurance at sleep that her government was doing whatever it took for her benefit, to make the lives of ALL citizens better, not just the ones that owned the banks.
As it seems, none of the bank owners are like George Bailey anymore. We are living in Potter’s Field, I’m afraid, and none of us has a Clarence to take us back.