I was born at home in rural Jasper County, Miss., in the small community of  Lake Como.  A few months later my daddy, having learned the skill of a barber, moved our family to Ellisville, Miss.  Here he obtained a job at a shop located in the center of this small town, which for the next ten year would be our home. We lived there and survived during the heights of the Great Economic Depression that begin in 1929. Times were really hard on most everyone during those years.

  We lived in a large unfinished, unpainted house with no indoor plumbing located on the west of town next to old Highway 11 that was still under construction. Across from our house and the railroad track was Jones County Junior College.  JCJC provided a place for us to play football, run track and engage in other activities.  These included trespassing in the biology lab where we saw all kinds of specimens encased in large glass containers filled with formaldehyde.

  These activities provided my friends and me plenty of opportunities to learn about life. We especially enjoyed being around the girls’ dorm, for even at age eight we found the beautiful young female students appealing.  They gave the cute boys, as they described us, a great deal  of attention.  We seemed to enjoy all this for reasons that we learned later in life.

  My dad also took me with him to places way out in the country to cut hair, shave and help prepare for burial someone who had died.  He performed this task quite frequently, so I was around dead people many times during my early life.  In those days many of the poorer families–and there were many–had to manage the funerals themselves; for few could afford the cost of burial by a funeral home.

  In order to keep the dead persons’ eyes from opening, the family would place a dime on each eye to keep the lids closed, so they would not suddenly open and reveal the “eternal stare” of the dead.  I always coveted those dimes, and on one occasion a family removed them and gave them to me prior to the old man’s burial.  Having those two dimes as my own to spend was like manna from Heaven for a lad like me!  That they came from a dead man’s eyes didn’t faze me.

  Our family eventually grew to include ten members.  One can imagine how difficult it was for a family to have much in the way of material things to live on and enjoy.  Back then haircuts cost twenty-five cents and shaves fifteen cents.  At an early age, even under five years, my older brother and I had to get all kinds of jobs selling and delivering papers and circulars, searching for and selling scrap iron, delivering groceries, picking up coal along railroad tracks, and doing farm work or anything else to earn a nickel or a dime.  This older brother, now deceased, was Dr. Prentiss F. Keyes of DeKalb.

  For those whose lifestyle is being adversely affected by today’s economic downturn, may I stress that it in no way compares with the difficulties faced by millions of families during the Great Depression.  Back then families had little income and no savings.  They lived in inadequate housing without plumbing or indoor toilet facilities.  Only a privileged few owned or had access to cars or luxuries the current generation seems to take for granted.  It now seems light years ago when our country had a much smaller middle class, and when poorer families were basically all in the same boat.

  It was especially hard for minorities, who really suffered both economically and socially; they had few educational and employment opportunities.  Such was the way of life back then; in no way can it be compared with life today.  Technology and science have brought about conveniences that make life so much better today.

  For those of my generation who often refer to times back than as “the good old days,” may I suggest that the “good old days” are here, right now?

  To the current generation, I suggest that you look around you and count your blessings, for things are not nearly as gloomy as they may seem.  In fact, you are fortunate and blessed to live in the greatest country in the world.  May I remind those who look upon our country as being in decline by referring readers to the words in the song  by Hank Williams, Jr., “America Will Survive!”