Panicky Americans: Oh, God, this is the worst economy since the Great Depression, and we're all going to be standing in bread lines with holes in our shoes! Save us, federal government, please save us now! Hoosier seniors who actually lived through the Great Depression: Suck it up, you whining wusses. You ain't seen nothin' like what we lived through:
Joseph A. Furman, a 93-year-old from Cedar Lake, said he's fed up with people calling today's economic troubles a depression. He said the current troubles are a few cry from the mass layoffs, hunger and hard times that followed the stock market crash.
"I don't think it will ever get to that point. Life was just unbearable," Furman told The Times of Munster for a story published Sunday.
Like other Hoosiers from that era, he recalls people struggling to scrape together enough money to get food for their families to survive. Furman remembers people selling apples to earn a little money, and the days when he and his relatives shared and borrowed clothing.
In the sentimental movie "Goodby, Mr. Chips," Chips the teacher says you need only two things in life: a sense of humor and a sense of proportion. Too many people today don't have either, so they have no perspective her. History started just yesterday (or maybe even today).
