Perspective

If you have any interest in images from the past and you don't visit Shorpy on a regular basis, you really should. It's a regular stop for me. Even if I only have time to hop on and check my email once during the day - I'll still almost always zip by Shorpy just to see what's been posted.

Today, I found this picture - Its circa 1936, deep in the Great Depression.

The picture doesn't look like much, until you read the caption listed in the Library of Congress Archive:

August 1936.

"Part of an impoverished family of nine on a New Mexico highway. Depression refugees from Iowa. Left Iowa in 1932 because of father's ill health. Father an auto mechanic laborer, painter by trade, tubercular. Family has been on relief in Arizona but refused entry on relief rolls in Iowa to which state they wish to return. Nine children including a sick four-month-old baby. No money at all. About to sell their belongings and trailer for money to buy food.

'We don't want to go where we'll be a nuisance to anybody.'"

I don't know about you, but this picture and the words of the people involved give me pause, and lots to reflect upon.

How different these people are, from many that you hear about today. They're poor, but not blaming someone else. They are in need of help, but not wanting to be a burden. They don't have much - and they're about to loose what little they have - but they are staying together as a family. They have pride, and that pride isn't the boastful, foolish, bragart type of pride. It's the strength that comes with knowing what is right and the strength that comes from having the will to persevere. There's no sense of "entitlement" at all.

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I had to deal with a man at work the other day, who was out of work. His dog had bitten a little 2 year old girl in the face, and he was trying his best to avoid having to pay to have his (unvaccinated) dog quarantined for rabies observation - as required by state law. We went around, and around about his options.

1. Quarantine at a Veterinarian's Office - at his expense.

2. Quarantine at our Shelter Facility, assuming we had space available, at a reduced rate.

3. Pay a Vet to Humanely Euthanize the animal and submit a specimen for testing at the State Laboratory.

He was baffled by the fact that, even though he "didn't have no money"... I was still insisting that he comply with the law. I tried to make him understand that rabies is fatal 99.9999999% of the time in humans, and that the law is very specific about the requirement for quarantine. It didn't have much effect.

I said, "Look, my job is to explain your options, as well as what will happen if you fail to comply with the law. I want to make this as easy on you as possible, but I can't give you an option that you don't have - just because you don't like what the law requires you to do."

His response: "Why come you all don't have a program for people like me?"

Yeah.

I eventually had to go to his house and impound his dog for quarantine. I called before going over there, just to give him a "heads up". He went back to sleep in the 15 minutes it took me to get to his house, and I had to knock three times on the door to get him up.

It was 10 am.

And he wonders why he can't find a job? I wonder what the little boy in the picture above would think about the character of this guy.


I'm ashamed for him.