From fairly well off to very poor in 10 years.

The first ten or eleven years of my life were interesting. I was born during the height of the Roaring Twenties (1925) and I turned eleven at the lowest point of the Great Depression (1936). My Dad was a skilled teamster. At one time he had a team of work horses (Bert and Beck) and did contract wotk in the many fruit orchards in Pomona, California. I watched my Dad excavate for a church basement with his team and a Fresno excavator. At one time we lived in a nice two story house. I was born at home (Kingsley Avemue). I can remember meals with Mom and Dad, five sisters, and three brothers. I was the youngest. My next youngest sibling was my brother, Warren who was five years older than me. I remember sitting by my Dad. There were many folks around a large table. One time or several times supper was just strawberry shortcake. (I still remember the large blue bowl that my Mom mixed the strawberries in.) But you could have all the strawberry shortcake that you could eat! There were several years of good times. Then my life got interestig. An old Chinese saying is "may your life not be interesting". I agree.

My Mom passed away when I was barely five. Her Mom (the only grand parent that I met) came and lived with us for a period. She and I would look at the radio and listen to One Man's Family and Amos and Andy. My older siblings left for marriages. Dad put me in a boys home until he ran out of money. Then it was just my Dad and I and times got very hard. Below is a graph of our nation's production over the first 10 years of my life.

My life and my Dad's fortune followed the same trend. I was born in a full house with food but then.... In 1933 the unemployment rate in the US was 25 %. My unfortunate Dad fell on very hard times. I remember no food in the house. In the sixth grade at lunch time I would pretend that I was going home to eat but actually I went around the corner for a while. (What did I do for breakfast and supper?)

About this time I came home one day and found that our furniture was stacked in the front yard  We had been kicked out of our home for not paying the rent. Homeless. I spent one night sleeping under some bushes during this period in my life. (A brother in law had complained to a sister about me living with them!)

I pulled through the hard times and later managed to get overweight. I have never gotten over missing my Mom. Here is a nice pic of Mom and Dad.