Now the 86-year-old remembers examining the strange fruit, feeling its unfamiliar texture, and trying to figure out how the heck to eat it.
“I had never had an orange before!” Carlson said. “I asked my mom, ‘What do I do with this?’”
 From left, Bud Lintt and Jo Burns attempt to put the current financial crisis in perspective. Some Coastsiders have lived long enough to see economic upheaval before. |
Gathering at the Adult Day Health Center on Monday morning, Carlson and several other seniors who had lived through the ’30s met for their weekly discussion of current events. This week, the discussion held special significance for the group, revolving as it did around a similar, albeit less severe, economic crisis and the government’s frantic efforts to inject $700 billion to stave off what some fear could become worldwide depression.
Carlson and the other participants say today’s economy has a long way to fall before it delivers the hardships they coped with to survive.
“The world just isn’t geared for that kind of economic turmoil anymore,” Carlson said. “Cities weren’t that big back then, but you’d have ... people waiting in lines down the block for food.”
Buzz Lintt remembers driving out to Northern California because conditions were so bad at his family farm in Nebraska. The 94-year-old recalls the early 1930s as the worst of the infamous Dust Bowl, and having to deal with dismal crops, gusts of choking dusty wind and hordes of ravenous locusts.
For him, coming out to San Francisco at age 16, and getting a restaurant dishwashing job for $13 a week, was a ticket to paradise.
“It was a dismal time. My family lost everything eventually,” Lintt said. “But it brought out the good in people; everyone had to help each other.”
Jo Burns nodded her head in agreement. Similar to Lintt, she had to leave her family in Montana in 1934 to search for work out west, luckily finding a job at the Seattle Times. The 93-year-old Burns says that even though few people had money to spend then, she remembers the Depression period as being quite joyous — because people had to rely on each other.
“I think people were happier then; they were more satisfied with the little things,” she said. “People would help out each other and you would know everyone in your neighborhood.”
But even though people today aren’t living in any type of comparable poverty to the Great Depression, many members of the discussion group did see eerie similarities between people today and those in the 1930s.
Carlson remembers his father running a Buick dealership in Chicago, even though his family could barely afford a single car for themselves.
“If you wanted a difficult job during the Great Depression, try selling cars,” Carlson said to his friends around the table.
Carlson said the recent closures of several Bay Area auto dealerships are an ominous sign of more troubled economic waters ahead. Even though no one was buying cars back then, Carlson says his father was able to keep his auto business open through the economic crisis until the United States got involved in WWII, when the economy — and cars sales — vastly improved.
Lintt agreed there are troubling signs in the economy today, but nothing on the same level as he remembers from his childhood.
“The Depression came on gradual and continued for 10 years,” he said. “For people today, you can’t make that drastic of a change so quick.”
Asked if there were any other similarities between today and the Great Depression, most members of the discussion group were at a loss for words.
“Here’s what’s similar,” joked 65-year-old Richard Mortola. “Both times we had Republican presidents.”
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