Depression Gas

This is not a history lesson but I need to tell you what is now called the Great Depression began with the crash of 1929 and lasted up until the beginning of World War II. You might even say that December 7, 1941 was the day the Great Depression ended once and for all. After that date anyone who wanted a job could find one and money began to flow into the economy almost overnight. During 1943 and 1944 I would ride my bicycle to high school and at 3:30 in the afternoon I would leave high school and ride my bicycle to the Texas Foundries and begin an eight hour shift there operating a turret lathe, a drill press and at one time a milling machine producing flanges for seagoing vessels and universal joints for PT boats being built in Louisiana. I learned by accident that I was making more money than my English teacher, who made sure I passed because he was a patriotic American. At the end of my senior year in high school I joined the U. S. Maritime Service and became a Merchant Marine seaman at age sixteen.

Aransas Pass, Texas was a delightful place to grow up. My father was Roy Strain who sold cars for Snyder Motor Co. during the Great Depression and for the rest of his life laughed and said he had supported his family during the depression with three words in Spanish: "?Quiere compre carro?". Considering his Spanish pronunciation many were surprised that he had sold any cars during the depression. My mother was Jewell Strain and she was a dressmaker and seamstress by her own declaration and sewed dresses for the leading ladies of Aransas Pass. She probably contributed as much to the family income as my father did and from time to time had one or two ladies working for her to turn out the new dresses and alterations needed for that market. I entered kindergarten when I was five years old. I was very advanced for my age, as my mother would explain, so graduated from high school at the tender age of sixteen. Kindergarten was with Mrs. Summerall whose son, Chunky, was in the class with me. We learned to do some arithmetic and learned to read the first grade books and upon completion of kindergarten passed on into public schools as second graders. My first sweetheart was Patty Perkins who often came over to my house to play and she was the first girl I ever kissed. Life was good. I felt like a winner.

Living next door to us was the Tate family. I've checked them on the Internet and I believe that like us they were of good Protestant Scottish-Irish stock. George Tate, the father, was a strict disciplinarian and owned the tailor shop in Aransas Pass. He named it "Tate the Tailor" and for years I was convinced that all tailors were named Tate. The boys were all much older than I, in fact grown. They were Wayne, Cue and Lem. All three worked very hard to make Tate the Tailor a successful business. The girls were the shining lights of the Tate family. Sadie was several years older than me and I'm sure considered herself grown by comparison but Clara was only two years older, so we were able to play together, but nothing serious transpired because of that vast age gap. I learned a lot from the Tate girls. I learned to eat mayonnaise sandwiches and to wrinkle up the skin on my arm and then laugh real loud.