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A Depressing Time
By Joyce E Bowling
Last edited: Saturday, September 23, 2006
Posted: Saturday, September 23, 2006
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I came upon this story that I wrote some time ago, I had actually forgotten about it. It is based on a true story...
A Depressing Time
Written By: Joyce Bowling
©March 2000
It surely was a time that was different than those just a few years prior. It wasn’t but only ten years earlier that work was plentiful and economy was at an all time high. My husband Daniel had steady work in the local Ford plant. He was a welder who brought home one of the highest pays in the entire factory.
Our home was grand, a two story southern plantation that managed to survive the Civil War. Our acreage was more than any family in the southeast part of Kentucky. The front lawn an entire acre itself. Grand white pillars supported the front of the red brick house. An eagle crest hung proudly over the double front door. Elegant flower and fruit gardens covered the rear grounds with a fishing pond, that was filled with small fish. A cobblestone wall made from the labor of slave’s hands years earlier proudly framed the entire plantation. Who could have known that things would change so dramatically, so quickly?
Daniel’s hours were cut in half at the Ford plant, leaving us in a desperate situation with the bank. Our mortgage payments begin to be later and later each month. I tried to find work, with no luck at all. We took our vegetables and fruit to market only to lay and rot in their bins. There was no money circulating for anything extra in the entire community. All of our hired hands were let go. Where they went I’m not sure, because most were hired due to needing a home and not having local family. Our beautiful garden became weed covered with no gardener to tend the property. Beans and corn were eaten nightly with no meat other than chicken. This was only because we couldn’t afford to feed them and had no other choice but to kill them and have fried chicken, roast chicken, cooked chicken and even chicken sandwiches.
Although it was a depressing time, and we had to give the bank part of our land for payment on the house, money was scarce and we got tired of eating chicken. We did make it through the depression, with many lessons learned. Never take things for granted, save for a rainy day, and remember that some storms last a long time. But when our storm ended, there was a rainbow after the clouds cleared. The depression was finally over.
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Reader Reviews for
"A Depressing Time"
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| Reviewed by Gwendolyn Thomas Gath |
3/9/2008 |
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This narrative did pull at the heart strings. "A Depressing Time" is well constructed and written Joyce, quite a delivery. Yes, I know there are times (all the times) when we have to be thankful and grateful for what we do have to eat and roofs over our heads for that matter.
Wonderful and thank you for sharing continued blessings,
~Gwendolyn
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| Reviewed by Elizabeth Price |
5/10/2007 |
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| Financial fear is horrible. I got behind by 2 payments once before the money started again. It wasn't fun. SAd story. |
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| Reviewed by MaryGrace Patterson |
4/10/2007 |
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| You survived the rainy days to find paths of sunlight. Its amazing how we make it through the tough times!.. Its a learing expierence!...Bless you!.....M |
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| Reviewed by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado |
3/25/2007 |
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I am glad you made it through; the Lord was surely with you, even in that "depressing time". Very well done, Joyce!
(((HUGS))) and much love, your friend in Tx., Karen Lynn. :) |
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| Reviewed by Angela Contreras |
2/1/2007 |
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Thanks for this I have lived in hard times and it does make one not take things for granted as I get older I see how I used to take things for granted. Now I see how things should be tresured specially time with our loved ones not just family but friends too. Thanks for this write.
Hugs to you Angela |
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| Reviewed by Crissy Foster |
1/18/2007 |
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I have just a few goals in my life, To rase my kids the best I can and to help them raise theirs into adulthood and never leave them on their own. To own a Lexus before I turn 40, to own a BMW before 50, and to own a house with a pickett fence in the woods near a creek so my kids never have to worry about a place to live. If I can have those things in my life then I will have everything I could ever want in life and it will be good.
I am a quarter of the way there, my Lexus will be delivered in a week and before I even turn 30! I'm ahead of schedual!
There is not much worse then to have the fear of being homeless looming above your head. I have had a difficult life and most of the time we worried about. However I have realized that some of my greatest memories are of me my mom and my sisters going out to eat when we were living in the car. We laughed and joked and felt safer in that pinto then anywhere in the world.
Keep writing, It's wonderful.
God Bless |
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