Civilian Conservation Corps on PBS

Saw PBS's Civilian Conservation Corps last night... WATCH IT. 
No matter what your politics, it is interesting and timely to revisit this period of United States history today.

"I remember as a child growing up in North Carolina looking up and watching Kansas fly by - the dustbowl reaching North Carolina, of course. I also remember fires... floods... drought... erosion, soil gone...What do you have to live on?

We were in a sad condition, environmentally.

The word environmental wasn't there at the time basically, but the situation was, and it was a critical situation.

We didn't have food, we didn't have jobs.

I don't think people realize how close this nation came to having a revolution."

It made me recall tales of my dad's parents in their youth: how his father rode the trains just like the men in this program, up and down the east coast looking for work.  At one time he was so thin he had a job in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania pulling out the bodies of dead miners from the mines.

He met my grandmother while riding those trains, stopping in Edenton and falling in love.

When they had my father, they left him behind to live with his grandparents on the family farm, while his parents sought their fortune in Hollywood.

What options did they have? There were none.
My grandparents somehow pulled optimism out of thin air and became entrepreneurs when there were no jobs.  Uneducated, they were able earn and save money, enough to buy a house, provide for their children, and own their own business.

Somehow, my crazy grandparents ended up meeting the Beatles, started a music studio, and had their own local tv show with my dad and aunt on it.  But farming, and food production, remained with them, reflected in my grandmother's bountiful garden.

Was it really just three generations ago topsoil flew through the air across the states?

Was it just three generations ago that pretty much everyone had food production on some level, chickens were common and practical, and your city neighborhood yard might have a pair of goats and even a pony?


[Copeland's note: No prefab pics until next week- I am volunteering for Raise The Roof, the annual fundraiser for The Children's Home Society this weekend. Because every child deserves a home.]