Depression Gas

I didn't have a clue what I was laughing about. Sadie and Clara both grew up to be stunningly beautiful and that brings us to the "beauty" mentioned in the title of this discourse. Clara's daughter Kelly found me on the Internet and I' ve been in almost daily email contact with Clara. She is a wealth of information on Aransas Pass and the days of the Great Depression. Clara remembers as much or more than I do about the murder of Dorothy Symons, in fact, Mrs. Symons stayed with the Tates after Mrs. Symons was released from the State Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. But of more importance to the subject at hand Clara remembered and confirmed the astonishing beauty of the little girl of my dreams in the third grade...JUSTINE ELLIFF. At this point if you have a recording of violin music, please take fifteen minutes and just play the music. Thank you.

Whenever and wherever rent was cheaper, we moved, so we did not live next door to the Tates for all the years we were in Aransas Pass. In fact I can remember six different houses we lived in. Across the street from one house where we lived there lived a gorgeous little blonde girl who stole my heart away. I can't remember for sure, but I believe by now Patty Perkins had gone on to better things. Justine Elliff was not only beautiful, she was fun to be with and she had this one quality not often found in one so young. If she came over to play and you couldn't play because you were working, she would pitch in and help you work. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. We spent a lot of time together through the second grade and up into the third grade. Justine was a grade under me, so she was a younger person and not appropriate for dates to the moves, just as I was not appropriate to Clara because of my two years junior to her. There were strict rules in those days.

There is one other thing you need to know about the Great Depression. We ate differently then. We ate what could be bought for a penny a pound. I believe a five-pound sack of red beans sold for seven cents at this time. Cabbage was cheap and many days I could find cucumbers thrown off the trains along the railroad tracks South of our house. I always suspected the hobos threw them off for the town people to pick up. Breakfast was often oatmeal with milk and sugar or maybe butter melted into the oatmeal and lots of sugar added, or it could be a plate of Log Cabin Syrup with a double pat of butter in the center; you would use your knife to work the butter and syrup together and then "sop" this mixture with your toast or biscuit. Log Cabin Syrup was often poured into the red and white beans for variation in flavor. There was always enough for someone visiting and I never saw a hobo turned away from a back door in Aransas Pass.