Prosperity

Prosperity is a word that you seldom hear used any more. It seems the politicians that we hire to run our country for us have decided that we have had too much prosperity in the past and they were going to change that. I can remember before America discovered prosperity. Some people had found it, but they kept it to themselves. Common folk could see it from a distance but were not allowed to share. Everybody knew who the mill owner was as he drove by in his Cadillac. He didn't know them.

In the days before WWII, few people owned their own homes. Working people rented “flats” in two and three deckers. They worked with their hands in mills and factories. Every Friday each employee would get a little manila envelope with their weeks pay in cash. Most of the women that worked, took employment in stores as clerks and other basic jobs since they got little or no training in school. If they did get any training it was generally in secretarial work. It was a short trip from high school to the work force in those days.

Suddenly, along came the war and the men went off to fight. The factory work had to be done more than ever, due to the war effort. So the women went off to the factories to produce what the world needed to survive. My grandmother, then in her mid forties and weighing about 90 pounds soaking wet, was a laborer in a wire factory. They were tough days.

But then the war ended and GI s that came back had an opportunity to get an education under the GI Bill. Many took that opportunity. Instead of being mechanics they became engineers, or doctors, or lawyers. Prosperity for the average family hadn't arrived yet but it was right around the corner. Those ex GI s had seen the world. They got an education and moved up in the world. They wanted to own their own homes, not live in flats like their parents. To continue go to http://patriotupdate.com/articles/prosperity/