A Child

A Child

Of the

Golden Generation

By

 

Okey L. King

 

 

 

 

        I was born September 30, 1940 in a flimsy four-roomed house overlooking Roxalana Hollow at Dunbar, West Virginia.  A year of so earlier, America had been pulled out of the Great Depression by Adolph Hitler when he invaded  Poland.   In a little more than a year later, the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese would plunged our nation bodily into the horrors of World War II.  These were the two eras that would mark the Golden Generation.

        This generation had its birth in times that were not a lot different than those a hundred years before.  It expired as the birth of cyberism began to squeeze the world into a place almost instant communication.   It stretched from a time when a trip to town for a farm family could be an all day occasion to a time when their grandchildren could eat breakfast in West Virginia and lunch in Seattle. It stretched to a time when men walked on the moon.

NOTE:

.....At the time that the Golden Generation came into existance, those who called themselves progressives held sway. They belived that the 20th Century would see the end to wall wars. They belived that disease, poverty, and all the negative things that pleagued society would come to an end. Instead, the 20th Century became the bloodest century in all recoarded history. While new wonder drugs, such as penicillan that saved my life, came on to the seen, new bacteria and virusus appeared that defied cures. Old diseases developed immunity to the wonder drugs. And, cancer became epidemic and is growing worse despite Presiden Johnson's war against it. In the 21st Century, breast cancer has seen a resurgence. The old folks who were progressives when the Golden Generation took over would be tramatized if the awoke today.

        During the time between the beginning and the end of the Golden Generation, the world changed into something that would not be recognized by the Golden Generation’s parents and grandparents.   That ride would resembles something like the simulated airplane ride at Dollywood.

        The change rode the wings of electricity.  That meant that the change did not arrive everywhere at the same time.  In rural Appalachia, this change did not arrive until the late 1940s when electric companies were forced to bring power to the ridges and the hollows of places like West Virginia.  It was not until then that TV antennas begin to spring up on the farmhouses.  The antenna would be replaced by the West Virginia State Flower: the huge satellite dish.

                The children of the Golden Generation were soon running after the first car to come to town.   Unless they were riding in that old Pierce Arrow, they were among the crowd laughing at the driver of the mechanical marvel that was now mired in the mud.  If they were lucky, they have may have ran outside to see one of the first airplanes fly over.  What a thrill!  They witnessed the paving of most of America with Americans embarking on the open road and staying at new fangled places called motor inns and motels. 

        Some of the boys were old enough to sail off to Europe as part of the American expeditionary force of World War I while the girls stayed behind to make bandages for the wounded.  Some left their earthly remains at places like Verdun.

        After the boys came marching home, some areas of America saw a wild prosperity.  But, that prosperity never reached the ridges and the hollows or the plains of the Midwest.  Migration to the cities to find jobs made many of ridges, hollows, and plains empty of families.  Nearly all cites had their neighborhoods called Little West Virginia, Little Kentucky, or little Tennessee.

        When the boys came marching home, they boys brought home their army issue safety razors.  Although these razors had been in existence before the war, men did not use them because it seem a sin to buy a razor blade and then just throw it away.  But, the soldiers used the new razor and continued to do so when they came home.  No longer did men have to stop at the barber shop every day for a shave.  This increased work time at the office and revolutionized  business.

        Prohibition plunged the young people into rebellion.  “You old folks are not going to tell me what to do.  I’ll drink in I want to!”  This attitude made Prohibition one the greatest mistakes that the American Government ever made.  Countless thousands died from poisoned booze.  At latter part of prohibition, a lot of the liquor was more embalming fluid that it was alcohol.  The only thing that grew out of prohibition was organized crime.  The bible thumpers and the pulpit stompers thought they could change the heart of America with a law.  They didn’t realize that the only thing that can change the hearts of Americans is the blood of Jesus Christ.

        Then, the bottom fell out of the wild boom.  Overburdened by greed and wild expectations, the Stock Market fell on Black Friday.  Mobs thronged the banks demanding their money forcing the government to declare a bank holiday.  Demand for most manufactured items disappeared.  Appliances and automobiles gathered dust on showroom floors.  Without any demand for goods, factories closed forcing workers out onto the street and into soup lines.  Families from the ridges and hollows went back home to the farm to survive the best they could.  Families in the cities lived from hand to mouth.

        FDR was elected president and he did his best to bring America out of the Depression but to no avail.  He initiated some very good programs like the CCC boys that accomplished some good things.  Bit, they didn’t end the Great Depression.  FDR is thought by many to have brought America out of the Depression, but he did not.

        While America was wallowing in despair, in Europe timid heads of state had allowed a mad man to come to power in Germany.  In 1939, Adolph Hitler did what FDR had not been able to do.  He invaded Poland plunging Europe into war.  Allied with Poland, Great Britain came to that county’s aide.  English industry geared up to serve the war.  That meant that Britain had to obtain its domestic goods someplace else.  That some place else was America.  Within weeks of the invasion of Poland, American factories were back to work producing both domestic and war goods for Great Britain.  Men who were in despair a few weeks earlier were earning a paycheck once more.  The Great Depression was at an end.   Although they would not have thought of themselves in that way, the folks that lived through the depression were a hardy lot.  But, they would have told you, we were just living one day at a time doing what we had to do to survive.   And, they did it with very little help form the government.

        During the period of time, just before I was born and for about a year afterwards, the world boiled around America.  Many Americans believed that we could get through the conflict with out having to fire a shot.  They were dead wrong.  On December 7th, 1941, Japan plunged us into a war that would change America forever.

        The sleeping giant that was trying to ignore the rest of the world roared to life.  Young men swarmed out of the schools and off the streets to join up to stomp “Toe Jo” and Hitler.  America was enraged because of Pearl Harbor.  However, FDR’s deals with Chruchill meant that we would have to deal with Hitler first.  After he was taken care of, then we would concentrate our firepower against Japan.   At least, that was what Churchill wanted and I have no doubt that he wasn’t displeased at all about Pearl Harbor.  He desperately wanted America in the war.

        Men who couldn’t fight or had special talents worked for industry and science in the war effort.  But, a great debt is owned to the women and girls.  For example, and old lady friend of mine, Garnet Casdorph who is in her nineties today, came out a hollow near Charleston, was trained, and sent to a factory to help build bombers.  She was a teenager.    She was just one of thousands who made the war effort possible.  They were tough and proud.  Women also joined the armed forces and performed duties that freed men for combat.  They flew many combat across the Pacific to the Combat areas.

        On the home front, America did without.  No new automobiles were built in 1944 and 1945.  Gasoline, sugar, and many other things were rationed.  Often the best food was sent to feed the troops.  But, the general public was in full support of winning the war.  Folks bought war bonds.  They sang songs like, “We’re going to kill the dirty little Jap,” and, Remember Pearl Harbor when you sight down the barrel of your gun.  Kill a dozen Japs for every boy that fell!”

        Loved ones dreaded the knock on the door from the Western Union man with a telegram that announced the death of a son, a brother, or a husband.   They received letters from boys in the South Pacific that were in tatters from the scissors of the censors.  I remember my parents getting these letters from my Uncle Walt.

        The news came that the war was over in Europe.  But, the war in the Pacific the War still ragged.  Men were dying at the hands of the Japanese who refused to surrender.   They would rather die an honorable death than give in to the enemy.  As we neared the shores of the main island of Japan, the Japanese people were ordered to arm themselves with any weapon that they could find and kill the enemy as he came ashore.  That would have happened with a staggering death toll to both Japanese and Americans if we had not dropped the bomb.  We dropped the bombs.  The war ended, but the world was changed forever.

        The boys came home hungry for women.  The women left the factories and resumed their duties in the home…at least for another generation.  The men and women’s hunger for one another resulted in the baby boomers.  Through the GI Bill, returning servicemen went to school.  Things began to change.

        We rolled into what was probably the best decade in America: the 1950s.  Things were pretty much on even keel.  TV came on the scene, but it was decent TV.  Families were fairly stable.  Divorce had not mushroomed.  Abortion was unthinkable as was same sex marriage.  Most wives were still housewives.  Most children came home to a mother and a home cooked supper that was still eaten around the table with all of the family there.  Most children had a father figure.

        At the end of this decade, the civil rights movement began with the standoff at Little Rock.  I was in the army stationed with two boys who had been there.  One was one of the black boys.  The other was one of the white National Guardsmen.  That was interesting.  The Golden Generation witnessed this struggle and then the integration of the schools of which I took a part in 1958.

        The generation witnessed the Vietnam War and the rebellion of young Americans..  They lived through most of the Cold War and events like the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The witnessed the murders of the Kennedys.  They saw a dishonest President caught and kicked out of office.  It must have seemed to many that the world was falling apart.  I think that many believed that America was “going to Hell in a handcart.”

        These folks of the Golden Generation were far from perfect.  Many were lacking when it came to Civil Rights.  But, they survived very difficult times and preserved a nation.  If they had not succeeded, the following generations may have existed but they may not have been American…or at least part of a free America.  The Americans of the Golden Generation  may not have been perfect, but I am proud to be one of their children.