The Great Depression

It seems many of us can’t turn on our TV’s or radios these days without feeling a sense of loss or an overwhelming pang of doom when we listen to the stock market reports. Of course, the words recession and depression mean different things, but to many people one is just as bad as the other can be.

Having the literary mind I have, I tend to think first about my stocks, and then realizing I have very little power to change the situation, I begin to think about John Steinbeck and his novels written during the Great Depression. Grapes of Wrath set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers driven from their home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agriculture industry. In a nearly hopeless situation, they set out for California's Central Valley along with thousands of other "Okies” in search of land, jobs, and dignity.

Of Mice and Men it tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers in Great Depression-era California. I fondly remember this book when I was a high school freshman. My English teacher Mr. Esberg did a great acting out the parts of both Lennie and George. He not only encouraged us to read more, but to enjoy what we read and to find the value in a great novel.

I’m not sure why I am sharing these thoughts except to say if hearing about the horrors of Wall Street are getting you down, you might pick up a Steinbeck novel, read it, and things might look better. Life may not be so bad afterall...