HAVING A FIELD DAY ?
Or As Yogi Berra Might Say
"It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again"
As our rocket scientist politicians in DC, debate what stimulates them and what doesn't and many in our brain dead media seem to constantly compare our current economic crisis to that of the Great Depression, you know the one that was brought on by many factors, but mainly by having the foxes guard the hen house while politicians looked the other way or were too stupid to act, I cannot ignore the irony of this pristine little booklet, that just happened to come my way today (Feb 6, 2009).
Whenever the current crisis ends, ( Note To Republicans: Tax Cuts Ain't Gonna Cut It ) I wonder what they will call it? Hopefully, "The Not So Great Depression" That said, this little booklet and the timing of it's appearance really gives me pause and the old saying that History Repeats Itself is once again echoing in this amateur historian's head.
But first a bit of background. After "The War To End All Wars" ( that would be WWI ) ended, our federal government auctioned off just about everything they ever built from 1917-18 at Camp Upton, a hastily built wooden city if you will, in the wilds of Yaphank (todays Brookhaven National Lab) only to have to rebuild it all again when WWII came along. In between the wars. we had the Great Depression and one of programs that the Roosevelt Adminstration came up with to put unemployed folks back to work was the CCC
As far as I know, there wasn't too much at Camp Upton in 1935, other than the land. The barracks that I knew at the lab in the 1960's were those built during WW2. Most of the lumber and entire buildings that made up the WW1 camp ended up in homes and business in surrounding towns like Mastic.
I was going to save adding this in until next Memorial Day, but lifes short.... eat dessert first !