TELLING TALES

TRUE STORIES OF MY LITTLE GIRL LIFE WHILE
GROWING UP IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION
BY MAXINE MAYS

I bought myself a gift today.  It was a Giraffe.  I named him Noah.  He is beautiful.  He is covered in soft leather and his spots are chocolate brown.  His ears are soft, folded leather and he has no function except to be beautiful.  And beautiful he is as he stands proudly beside my fireplace, for all to see.  I was totally self-indulgent  to purchase him for no particular reason except that I thought he was beautiful and I wanted him.  I have always wanted a giraffe. He cost $55.00.  As I lifted him out of the car and lovingly placed him beside the fireplace, I thought, There was a time when $55.00 would have been a matter of life or death for my family.  When we were so poor during the years I was growing up, we never spent a penny needlessly. And we never wasted anything. I vividly remember the depression.  I was born in 1928, just before the big crash in 1929.  The early years of my life were dominated by our poverty. We knew we were poor and were not ashamed of it, for everyone we knew was poor.  There was just no money to be had. My father was lucky to earn $50.00 a month, and many months he earned far less than that. A house could be rented for $25.00 a month, if someone were lucky enough to have that much money for rent. If we saved a nickel on a bargain, we were ecstatic. But I say with pride and with deep gratitude to my parents, we were never hungry, and we always had a roof over our heads.  We were not sad and miserable because we were poor.  Because, as I have already noted, everyone was poor.  At least everyone that we knew.  And we always had occasional treats, special experiences and events to be joyous about.  The following stories record some of those special times. Others tell about important lessons learned and risks taken by a little girl who had no fear.  I was an adventurous risk taker as a child, and remained so for all of  my life. Some memories of my childhood are stamped, indelibly on my mind.  The most vivid of those are told here.