A Feeling In The Air

Maybe you have noticed and you maybe you haven’t, but there is an 'odd feeling' to this country lately, something very strange. Some years ago I was doing research on local history at the library. I was reviewing old microfilmed newspaper articles written just prior to the American Civil War. I was astonished to find the amount of articles and editorials that stated to the effect, “While we all feel an agitated state of affairs over slavery, it would be preposterous to suppose Cessation and possible war might be the result.” I found this intriguing. On the heels of an all out Civil War - almost up to the last minute, there were those who felt it nearly impossible. It is also interesting that few - if any, saw the lead-up to the First World War. After all, who would have thought that something like Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination would plunge an entire world into war? Then again, the Machine Age ushered in an entire new arsenal for the world to try out. It was bound to happen.


I occasionally speak with an elderly gentleman named Chuck from Rochelle Illinois. He served in the Marine Corps in WWII in the Pacific Theater, namely at Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Tinian. He wife informed me that for many years he would never talk about the war. Three years ago he broke a long held silence. One of his grandsons began asking him questions about the war, and he finally opened up. I asked him why he had changed his mind and he said, “I don’t want to take it with me.” We often talk about the war and many of his other experiences.
 It reminds me of a time when I used to sit down with my maternal grandfather as he talked about his life. I would ask him one question after another, prodding my way along trying to imagine in my own mind what it must have been like to have lived in 'the olden days'. I was a puzzle to him, he must have thought, ‘who is this kid that wants to talk about history rather than baseball?’ As far as I know, I was the only grandchild to have an interest in the past.
My grandfather was 12 years old when the Spanish Flu Epidemic hit in 1918. He related how they stacked the bodies like cord wood onto wagons and hauled them out of Camp Grant down Kishwaukee Street. I still remember how he would tear up when he talked about it. Almost appologetically he would pause and wipe the tears from his face. Everone at the time knew someone that died in that horrendous epidemic. 
Chuck always ends our conversations with, “I’m sorry to bring up the past”, as he wipes a tear from his eye. I do not believe he realizes that it is usually me that brings it up. I feel somewhat guilty about bringing up things that are still painfull in the eyes of those who have lived it. My consolation comes from Chuck in the same mannor that it came from my grandfather. The next time we see each other there is always that sparkle in our eyes, and that smile that seems to say that maybe we have succeded in defeating the Generation Gap. To the young or old, such a victory is rare.
 That generation endured the Great Depression. That generation knew all too well what hardship was about, and yet everytime I speak with one of them I get the feeling that they miss that era. I often wonder whether it is their youth that they miss, or if it is the fact that they lament the despicable shape our society is in today.  Are they aware that they were the Greatest Generation? I asked Chuck one night if he thought that the current generation could endure such hardship. He is a very modest man and humble by any one's standards. I expected him to say something like,'yes if they had to'. But he did not. Instead, he said that the current generation could not cope because, " they are too soft in the pants." He did not have to say anymore, I knew unquestionalby that he was right. Both Chuck and his wife are examples of living history. I respect him and I admire him, he has no reason to apologize to me for anything. I consider it an honor to have ever met him or his wife. His wife is an outstanding person, a real jewel who remembers the war years and the sacrifices that were made on the home front.

One day as I was driving down to Rochelle I was absorbed in deep thought about what questions I wanted to ask Chuck the next time I see him. There was one question that kept coming to the forefront. That night he and his wife pulled into the parking lot next to my car. Here was my chance. After some small talk we talked about the history of Rochelle, and then he told me a few stories about growing up in a small town in the 1930’s. Before we parted our ways for the evening - I had to ask,” What was it like in the years and days leading up to the war? Did anyone see it coming?”

“Of course we did, he said, there was no getting around it. My teacher told us in History Class that he had served in WWI. He knew what war was about. He had lived before it, survived during it, and he dealt with the aftermath. He told us that by the time we graduated from High School we would be in another war, only bigger. We believed him.”

I asked him again, “So Chuck, you knew it was coming?”

Chuck was agitated that I had asked the same question again. It was as if I should have already deduced whatever it was I was after. I only wanted to point more toward his personal experience and opinion.

But he answered, “Yes, of course, you could feel it in the air. The attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor – that was a surprise, but we knew that sooner or later something was going to happen to pull us in.”

As I drove home that night I kept running those words through my mind, ‘you could feel it in the air.’

Chuck gave me what I was after – he always does. I could not help but notice that he kept using the word, ‘we’ instead of, ‘I’. This tells me that the feeling leading up to the war was something that was ‘collective’ rather than just a personal observation. In other words, the smell of war was in the air, not merely in the room.

I suspect at least some of the men who wrote the newspaper articles and editorials just prior to the American Civil War were living in a cocoon of wishful thinking or sheer denial. I believe that if you could go back in time you would indeed find that there were many who collectively felt there was ‘something in the air'.

Yes, you can feel something in the air in 2010. In fact, I have been feeling it in the air for the last several years. There is an Arsenal of contention, hatred, religious, ethnic, and racial intolerance, political polarization, economic insecurity, and a whole plethora of other nasty things in History’s’ weapons cache. And I don’t believe they are going to be any less explosive in historical nature than the American Civil War, World War One, or World War Two. In fact, we are in for something bigger, much bigger - it is bound to happen.

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.

Will Durant, Think about that for a moment.

Some Thoughts On The Nation

 Admittedly, most of the people I know take very little time to keep up on current events, and virtually no time studying history. Unless of course Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan is involved. That's big stuff,( I hope you can see the sarcasm in that, if you can't - please exit my blog now). Despite this, I do see that many Americans are alarmed at what they perceive to be happening to America. "We are in debt over our heads." " There are no jobs". Of course there are other things in which people are fretting about.  There are many who are concerned that the very nature of the Government is abruptly changing or being transformed into another type of Political Entity. You should know by now what I am referring to. Words like Socialism, Communism, Police State, Welfare State, etc... I am not surprised. I started doing research into the Great Depression when the current economic crisis struck. I knew that this was no ordinary recession right from the onset.

I made a remark one day to a friend of mine that what Bush/Obama was doing with TARP was a page right out of Roosevelt's New Deal Plan. He then asked me ," Wasn't that a big waste of money, I mean did what Roosevelt did back in the 1930's really bring us out of the Depression?" No, World War Two brought us out of the Great Depression. Then he said, " Didn't Roosevelt turn the country into a Welfare State with that plan?" That is debatable. Initially no, at least I don't believe that was his intention. I knew where this conversation was headed. He wanted to know if Obama was furthering the process of turning the country into a Welfare State - and wasting tax payer money to do it.
Back in the 1930's during Roosevelt's years the same words and concerns were echoed about the Social Programs that were put in place as a result of the Great Depression. Programs such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) and several more. I will not list or expound on them all ,you can research them yourselves. FERA was an agency that provided relief to the poor. It was slated initially for
$500,000,000, but in two years the amount distributed to Home Relief Bureaus and Departments of Welfare for the poor totaled over $3,000,000,000. Obviously, whether you considered this a good thing or a bad thing depended on which side of the fence you were on. If you were a receiver it was a good thing, and I'm sure it helped many from going hungry. I will bring to light a few interesting facts that you might not have heard before. Under the guise of the WPA a few other programs materialized. Among these are the Federal Writers Project (FWP), Federal Theater Project (FTP), and the Federal Art Project (FAP). In 1936 the Federal Art Project employed more than 5,000 artists. In eight years (1935-43) the FAP produced 2,566 murals, more than 100,000 easel paintings, 17,700 sculptures and 350,000 fine prints. The cost of the FAP was in excess of over $35,000,000. As you can imagine, at the time there were many in the country that could not justify that kind of money for the Arts. To some (especially Republicans) this was viewed as sheer government waste. Never the less, it did not stop any Americans from going to the theaters. The FTP launched or employed many actors and actresses that would become household names like Arther Miller, Orson Welles, Will Geer, and others. The Arts programs were stopped after four years because there were accusations that they were a propaganda machine for the New Deal or worse yet - Communism. Congress brought them to a halt.


Many in that era accused the Roosevelt Administration of trying to end Democracy and make the United States a Socialist or Communist country. Historians to this day still take opposing sides in the debate about the Pros and Cons of the New Deal. I would rather not get into a debate about such things. I believe that some of these programs did what they were designed to do. However, like everything else that humans touch, they were abused over time. For some of these programs there were termination dates. However, even after the War ('41-'45) had stimulated the economy beyond any one's wildest dreams in the 1930's, some programs remained.
In 1962 Eward R. Murrow did a Documentary entitled, "Hunger In America". This was over thirty years after the onset of the Great Depression. Yet, some parts of the United States like the far South, Southwest, and the Southeast were living in rampant poverty. This documentary led Robert Kennedy to begin his "War On Poverty." So, some parts of the United States never did recover from the effects of the Great Depression, in fact, the South hadn't fully recovered from the effects of the Civil War. One of the weapons of The War On Poverty was indeed a Program that encouraged those that were eligible for Government Assistance to sign up. Generations have now grown used to dependence on Programs put in place decades ago. This is the reason that some have taken to calling the United States a Welfare State. Are we? Yes, without question. Lets not forget though - in all fairness, that there are many who have benefited or are benefiting from some of these programs today. For instance, the Social Security Act is considered a key component of every Americans retirement - even though it was not meant to be. Millions over the years have used Unemployment benefits. So there really exists Pros and Cons to the New Deal put forth by Roosevelt. If you have ever used any of these programs then you must admit that a good portion of society has benefited in one way or another - including you. Is it different today? In a nutshell - yes. While there are many similarities to the 1930's programs and what the government is doing today, there are vast differences. For example, you can multiply exponentially the waste that our government has propagated with the modern take of what I call, "The Raw Deal". We are not the 1930's generation - unfortunately.

Dedication To "These People"

“Just as we demarcate life by certain events, so too we come to realize that we have unknowingly categorized the people we have met throughout the course of our life. People come into our lives by various means. There are 'Those' we come to know as acquaintances; we meet them at school, work, or a myriad of other social settings. While we may have had good experiences with Those people, we built few lasting memories. Whether their presence in our life was short, or long , we never came to have a meaningful or deep conversation concerning ourselves or our true feelings. For some reason we always seemed to look for the differences between them and ourselves. With Those people there will always be an air of formality or unconditional indifference. As a result, we often look back at Those people and realize that they were just mere extras on the grand stage of life. We realize that this does not diminish their importance as people or individuals, for no Set would be complete without them. Should we ever encounter them again in the future we will be cordial, but we may struggle to remember their name or anything tangible about them. For the simple fact remains, Those people will forever remain strangers.

And then there are 'These'. We met These people in the same fashion as we met those others. But These people were different for reasons we cannot fully explain. There was something about them that we were drawn to. We looked for the similarities that form a common bond. In their presence we felt a sense of security that enabled us to loosen the reins of formality. These people were eventually given free admission into the deepest recesses of our thoughts and feelings. This allowed us to see sides of each other– both the good and the bad, reserved but for only a few. As this relationship grew and deepened we learned to communicate sometimes without words, choosing instead to convey via another channel; the heart. This was often accomplished by simple means; a mere glance.

Indeed, when we look back we may find that we never said ‘I love you’, but only because the need was ever manifest; we always just knew. Yes, we came to have a genuine love and care for These people much like our own family. While their tenure in our life may have been short or long, we never judged the quality of the relationship by its duration. In fact, we do not believe it to be an accident that These people came into our lives at any given time; they have been granted a leading part on our life’s grand stage by the Ultimate Director – God, for these people fulfilled a role that no one else could.

These people will part our lives as those others have, but not without difference. For if life makes us part under any circumstance, including the ultimate separation-death, we will always know that as long as one lives so too does our endearing friendship. For love, like time, has no boundary. In the event that we are afforded the opportunity to meet again, we at once pick up where we left off, filling in the gaps without formality or constraint. For these people have already seen us at our very worst and yet still love us for our very best. These people represent one inescapable fact; they were and are our dearest and truest friends. With these people we can never be strangers again.”

A page from, Of Rage and Silence, by Timothy Lee.

From The Beginning

I was among the last generation of little boys that had to wear dress pants and dress shoes to school, all little boys had to. All little girls wore dresses. Tennis shoes were for gym class only. We were taught to pay respect to all adults because they were in charge, and we were taught to respect authority. There were two worlds then, the world of childhood and the world of adulthood. The auspices of childhood were protected and governed by the countenance of adulthood. Then overnight, it all seemed to change. I do not know whether it actually changed that fast or I just suddenly became aware of it – but it changed. Soon, there would only be one world.


Even though I was only a child I was peculiarly fascinated with both current and past events. It was an unusual awareness that has persisted to this day. World and national events were my forte – baseball was not. I never walked by a newscast.

I was too young to remember the Kennedy assassination; I was only two years old. There are other events that I do remember. I stood dumfounded at the television when a tornado tore through Belvedere Illinois on April 21, 1967, less than twenty miles from where we lived. In 1968 Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated months apart. I can remember my parents and grandparents ranting on about the Democratic National Convention riots in Chicago. This too was close to home; we lived less than a hundred miles from there. The 1960’s would turn out to be “the decade of assassinations and riots”. Even as children we could feel the pall of fear and uncertainty permeating the air. It seemed the whole world was unraveling.

My mother called me into the house on a warm July day in 1969 to watch what would become known as “One giant leap for mankind”. For some reason I protested at first saying, “Why do I have to watch that?” She responded by saying, “Because it is history, and you are going to watch it.” I am glad she did. That Apollo mission was launched four days earlier on July 16, my birthday.

I remember seeing the hippies on the nightly news smoking pot on camera in defiance of 'the system' and 'the Man.' Formality was officially out; they were dancing naked at Woodstock.

I remember Charles Manson’s glassy eyed glare being shown on the news in 1970 during one of the most sensational trials of the century. I also remember the shootings at Kent State. Most of all, I remember the horrifying images of the Vietnam War. They were being shown on the news night after night. Names like Saigon, Da Nang, and Hanoi were words that you heard every day. And yes, I thought the world would stop when the Beatles broke up. This is an exert from, Of Rage and Silence, by Timothy Lee.

After I witnessed the moon landing my life was never the same. I became a hopeless news junkie. Despite the ongoing war, I no longer saw televsion as the enemy. I came running in every night to watch Walter Cronkite with his seemingly unerrable tenure. He seemed to me to have a presence about him that was more Presidential like - than typical newsman. Years later I would come to realize he carried as much influence.
 When I was 14 years old I was often begging my mother to drop me off in downtown Rockford, so I could go to the Winnebago County Recorders office or the Library. I was a natural born researcher. I hated questions because I could never leave them unanswered. Many years later I find myself much the same. I am antagonized by a lack of understanding. I realize that most do not share my enthusiasm for knowledge, news, current events, or perhaps any of the things that I am interested in. That is one reason for this blog , I know there are others. It is my hope to share my opinions about what is going on in our world today, and also to have you share yours. By this means we all win because we all learn.

My life has not been perfect or even what most would consider "sucessful". I struggled as a youth and a young adult with emotional problems. This was due to being raised in a violent alcoholic home. My life was much more centered on survival than it was just being a child. Because of this I spent much of my time dwelling on self pitty and looking for a way out of a world that I tried hoplessly to understand. My grades as a student suffered along with the rest of me. In no time, I found myself following in my fathers footsteps. I will be sharing my story online here for those who still suffer and those who have been afflicted by a less than ideal past. When I went through these things they were considered the 'exception' to a normal family life. Now, in todays society what I went through is now becoming the new norm. This is another reason for this blog. In addition, there will be short articles about local history for those who live in Winnebago County or surrounding area. Till next time, take care and stay tuned.