I have done some research and would like to address those in our community whom I hear regularly complaining that we are presently in worse shape than during the Great Depression.

Most of those individuals probably did not live through the Great Depression because had they done so they would realize that it was far worse than anything we are experiencing today.

In the early 1930s there was a quarter of the labor force unemployed, many living in tar paper shacks, in parks and under bridges. Federal Social Security did not exist until 1935, and after that year, and up until 1939, no one was covered but the worker himself.

Compounding the huge economic problems was the shadow of the pending war in Europe, in which we would become embroiled and lose hundreds of thousands of our greatest asset — our youth. Forty percent of the housing units had no bathtubs or showers, and influenza and pneumonia ran neck-to-neck with cancer as a cause of death, as there was no treatment of bacterial diseases, other than natural and acquired immunity.

Passenger planes were only available in very limited schedules, and then only for lomng uncomfortable trips within the United States. And the huge advancements in outer space and in medicine were years away.

The present recession is a human event, and like all natural ones moves in cycles. It is not a new calamity, nor will it be permanent. It only seems new because it is happening to us and like all other cycles will pass.

So, when we who are here at this time continue to insist that "things have never been worse," I say keep on worrying, whining and complaining, but please, do it far away from me. I am content to enjoy the wonderful benefits of living in Sun City West in the United States of America in the year 2009.

Sun City West