The only reason a couple of people like your folks were able to have what they did for the jobs they did was the fact that the rest of the world’s industrial base was destroyed after WWII and the only place “stuff” could be built was the U.S.

Although I agree on the 2nd part of this statement, I’m not so ready to agree on the first. I do realize that there were many areas of abject poverty. In fact, my Mother would cart me around to some of the small mining towns that dotted the surrounding area and I saw real poverty up close, but always with the lesson that I should appreciate what I did have through the hard work of my family.

I don’t agree “The only reason a couple of people like your folks were able to have what they did for the jobs they did was the fact that the rest of the world’s industrial base was destroyed after WWII.” They had what they had because they saved the fruits of their labors, spent frugally on items they knew would last and they never lived their lives thinking they had to keep up with the Joneses. They lived within their means, never accumulated debt and never operated with a deficit. My Dad came from generations of farmers going back before the Revolution in Pennsylvania and before that Wales, my Mother came from seafarers, whalers, and merchants who made their living from these endeavors on Long Island and in the trade between England, France and the new country of America from the mid-1600s. Although my Mother was better educated than my Dad, they both struggled to work their way thru college as the Great Depression closed in. My Mom had a Masters in economics from Berkeley and made $11 a week on her first job and $13 a week at her 2nd. My Dad worked the oil fields of Texas to get thru college and then got a job as a civil engineer with the WPA and then later with a private company who built many of the bridges you see throughout the country. My Dad believed luck came to people who were prepared for the opportunities presented along their path and preparation meant education and hard work learning from the bottom and never being afraid to get your hands dirty. Neither would ever take a handout and both are rolling over in their graves at the idea that their daughter and grandchildren should have to subsidize someone else’s lifestyle, healthcare, housing, etc. My Dad died at the young age of 49 and I was 13. My Mom picked up the slack and went on to a highly successful career as an executive, published writer, artist, musician, and consultant. Preparation and a solid nest egg helped her continue to support us and put me thru college. Although many well-meaning but butinsky neighbors/friends were constantly cautioning me about how our lifestyle would need to change after my Dad died and my Mother was sole support, I never noticed the difference. My parents were so frugal all the time, I never had all that much to begin with and nothing really changed, except that the first thing my Mom did just days after she buried my Dad was buy an automatic washer and matching dryer, but she did that because she no longer had the time to do the laundry the old-fashioned way. And just before the moon landing she bought her first color TV so she could watch it in living color. And because she loved music so much, at some point she bought herself a high quality stereo system, but that was long after I’d left home as was the color TV. And I finally talked her into her first computer when she was 87. Little did I know I was creating a monster. Within a year, she was writing programs and doing the most incredible artwork on her computer and then she found out that some of her long lost friends had email and that she could tour the Louvre in a virtual tour from the comfort of her bedroom and she was hooked. When she found out that she could enjoy an after dinner rousing game of email Scrabble with her daughter who was 3000 miles away, she told me that it didn’t get much better than that. The day we left CompUSA together with her new baby, was a day I created a computer geek of the first order. Did I mention she was 87 at the time?