The Depression

She was a rich girl, sad as an old dog. Her father was a gambler and her mother, just plain crazy.

She spent the days at school hiding from bullies and her nights at home listening to her mother screaming at her father. Defenseless, her father explained that his gambling losses were unsuccessful investments. In a fury of frustration, her mother howled that because he couldn't control his appetites they would soon be as poor as were their parents in the tenements of the old Lower East Side.

Her mother tore at her clothes, causing rents in them as if she were in mourning, which she was. They all were. They were in a depression. It was 1930, and butter and happy dreams of family life and joyous dancing at weddings were things of the recent past. Now there were lamps with dead bulbs, and an ice box with margarine and hoarded milk. Once there were crystal chandeliers and lovely roasts and bootleg champagne.

The crying and screaming went on into the early morning hours. Sometimes her mother exhausted from emotion, would come into her bedroom and lie down next to her, and gently hold her. Then there was a bit of comfort. But the morning light broke through the lace curtains. It was time for mean girls, hard-eyed teachers, and a fearsome haze of chalk dust.

Flower-strewn, butterfly-flecked meadows and cool gray swimming holes and best friends were for someone else's childhood.