AMERICAN LEGACIES.

Friday, June 3rd, 2011
by John Tiley

It is uncanny that this story begins in a time where America was in the throes of a gut wrenching depression. Think in terms of what it must have been like in the late thirties. America slowly pulling itself up in great part because of President Roosevelt's programs. Many of our state parks, bridges, dams and roadways were built in an effort to put Americans back to work. In the private sector, sales of new cars, refrigerators and the like were just beginning to pick up. Manufacturing was gradually returning to America. Then World War Two hit like a tidal wave. In the blink of an eye America went from small time to being the mightiest nation in the world. The largest and best trained troops, ultra modern air and navel forces and then, at the end of the war, thousands of GI's returning to the private sector looking for work. The economic engine that grew to support that huge war effort now had to re-invent itself for the consumer market and in many ways it did. GI's came home and went back to school, got married and had families . They needed homes, cars and refrigerators. But that didn't fully fill the gap. Companies would get contracts, gear up the work force to accommodate then when the contract ended many times had to go through layoffs until new contracts could be secured and work could begin again.

And then came the “Cold War”! Russia became the Soviet Union and they had the bomb! And threatened us at every turn. China also turned to communism. North Korea and their backers, the Chinese dragged us into the Korean War. And all of this had the effect of re-igniting the war machine. A race of giants with the goal of mutual total destruction at the heart of things.

All of these events with the addition of the race to the moon, had the effect of basically keeping America an a war footing for over forty years. It was a two edged sword in that we were constantly threatened by the prospects of being nuked into oblivion at any moment and on the other side, having a consistently strong economy. The Companies made lots of money, kept a huge workforce in place and a sizable Armed Forces was always ready at the drop of a dime. Now I am sure there was a lot of juggling going on but taxes at least kept America from getting too deep. Russia, at the end of things went bankrupt.

What did that mean to the average person? If you lived and were “of age” you could pretty much count on having work and if you actually went to collage you could count on a lifetime guarantee of being in demand. At least that was what they told us then...