Then and Now

I think this is a good time to tell a story about my dad. My dad graduated from college summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, president of the honor society, editor of the student newspaper at his major Midwestern university in the 1930s. He went to law school, did well there, and passed the bar. It was still the height of the Depression of the 1930s and jobs were very hard to come by. He spent the next year bumming around in Europe. In 1938! I’ve got some very interesting stories from the journal that he kept which I’ll share with you some time.

When things really began to heat up in Europe he came home and, despite his great credentials, he was unable to find work as an attorney. He finally took a job as an insurance claims adjuster.

When the United States declared war, first against Japan and then against Germany, he tried to get into every branch of the service and the FBI and was turned down because of his eyesight. However, a year or so after we went to war he was finally able to get a job as an associate with the biggest law firm in town at the time. I attribute that in part to the labor shortages the war created. After the war he was approached by the OSS which asked him to go undercover back to Germany but by that time he was married to my mother and was reluctant to leave.

A few years later the law firm collapsed in scandal (another story I’ll tell you about some time) and he struck off on his own. Going was hard at first and he made ends meet by teaching law school. After a few more years he was well under way and making more money in real terms than his dad had ever done.

I didn’t face any of the obstacles my dad faced. I never had a problem getting a job. Most of my problems are of my own making.

I don’t envy my nieces and nephews the world into which they are emerging from their familial cocoons. I think it’s a lot more like the one my dad faced than the one I’ve faced has ever been.

This is not to say that I haven’t worked hard or faced setbacks. For my first decade of employment I worked at least 50 hours a week and at one point 80 or more hours a week and I’ve been thoroughly screwed over in one way or another by every employer I’ve ever had. But I’ve survived.

2 comments… add one
  • Michael Reynolds Link

    Bumming around Europe in 1938. How cool is that? Like hanging out in Moscow in say 1916. Or Philadelphia circa 1775. The writer in me gets sick with jealousy.

  • He had quite a few adventures while he was there. He heard Hitler speak in person. He was detained in Serbia on suspicion of being a German spy. He was in Munich on November 9, 1938. I think that may have been what prompted him to return to the United States.

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