The three words are in the news daily, over and over and over, but do we, as Americans who live in the 21st Century, really tune into this great report? It has even been published that there are more jobs than there are people to fill them.

Is this when we get persnickety?

I know I don’t. Why I have been searching for a job for Hubs for five years now. I mean he has been retired for 10 years and that’s long enough. Uh-huh. You know ladies – half the money and twice the husband. Yep, perfect definition for a hubs-type-retirement.

And that’s when I tune into the nightly news and hear the wonderful jobs statistics. Doesn’t anyone need an engineer proficient in procrastination?

It seems so simple: Read the job openings, apply and go to work.

I am reminded of a time when there were no jobs, in the 1930s. It was the Great Depression.

It was my great privilege last spring to present a play about Meridian’s history for an elementary school that included that terrible time. Kids need to know.

I saw a photo I made recently at the time of the play when students were dressed in drab clothes and held signs, “Give my dad a job,” along with signs that read “Food” and “We need a place to live.” The kids in my photo are smiling. Did they understand? Even my generation cannot fathom such a time.

We must teach our children that our expensive lifestyles could change, change quickly. We teach, not in a threatening way, but factual that there was a time before computers, iPhones, video games, nice places to live and when everyone had a car. Yes, there was the time of great need, even here in America, and we must appreciate what we have today.

Last spring I think the children sort of got it. It is really hard to grasp, even for me, when I look around my lovely house and see all of my nice things, many of which are not needed, I remember the stories from my grandparents when they were children. One Great-Uncle said, “We almost starved to death.”

Another one said, “Mama and daddy had to move all of us little children with them into an old chicken house with holes in the walls. We were glad to have it.”

No, we who are living today do not understand. It doesn’t make sense. I mean my great grandparents were modestly wealthy, nice house, car and truck inside the garage, my grandmother in college when it all hit. She had to come home and live on the place, which her family sweated out paying the annual taxes, as everyone did. If the taxes were not paid, then families were left homeless.

But today in the 21st Century, we have so many jobs available that we are not, I think, appreciative. It is as if there will always be plenty, plenty to spend and sometimes it is spent on nonsensical things, things not needed. Many never make budgets or plan for a needy day.

I am happy my grandparents shared their grandparents’ stories with me about bad times, but they also told me about their survival in order to teach me if I worked hard and made good plans, I too, could survive a time in my life such as, God Forbid, the Great Depression.

I remember the country song:

Luckenback Texas (in part)

by Waylon Jennings

… so baby let’s sell your diamond ring

Buy some boots and faded jeans and go away.

This coat and tie is choking me

In your high society you cry all day

We’ve been busy keepin’ up with the Jones

Four car garage and we’re still adding on …

But don’t sell the diamond ring, just yet.

However, here at the McKee ranch, the nightly news bleats on and on. Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

I’m thankful.

Anne B McKee is a Mississippi historian, writer and storyteller. She is listed on the Mississippi Humanities Speakers Bureau and Mississippi Arts Commission’s Performing Artist and Teaching Artist Rosters. See her web site: www.annemckeestoryteller.com.