I was born on the 23rd day of September, 772 days before the first plutocrat, as Winston Churchill claimed, jumped to his death from the window of an office tower in New York's financial district. The Great Depression had begun the day before, on Black Tuesday, Oct. 29, 1929. From that day until my 12th birthday, I was a young Canadian victim of the world-wide financial and economic meltdown. I also lived on Saskatchewan's short-grass prairie, home to drought, screaming winds and choking dust.
All through that grim decade before the Second World War, the people in rural Saskatchewan also waged a battle against isolation. The Depression ended when the war began, but isolation continued.
I have heard a survivor of the Dirty Thirties say, "We didn't have anything and we shared it." It was a quip, but another often expressed observation was set to music. To the tune of Ach du Lieber Augustin people sang, "The more we get together, the happier we'll be " This was no quip, it was the gospel of the people and their time.
Although some homesteaders still travelled in horse-drawn wagons and buggies, most drove cars, except in the worst years when automobiles were put up on blocks. They endured all the uncertainties of travel on a primitive road system to reach their gathering places. Even small villages had such places - one or more churches, a curling rink, an open-air skating rink and a sports ground where the annual sports day attracted people and baseball teams from distant places. I recall exploring the grounds as a little boy. Sometimes I saw older boys and girls kissing furiously in parked cars. I wondered why they weren't watching baseball games instead.
At every rural school there were picnics, dances and Christmas concerts. At a small country school, the Christmas concert preceded a long winter holiday. Money-conscious trustees didn't want to pay for wood and coal for the schoolroom heater through the darkest months of winter. Imagine you are a farm boy in midwinter. You no longer see your classmates for five days out of seven. Except for your assigned chores, you are left to your own devices. Perhaps you have access to a .22 calibre rifle and some shells. You shoot prairie chickens for the table and rabbits for their hides, which you sell to Sidney I. Robinson and Company of Winnipeg. Rabbit fur will pay for something you want to take to a gathering place. Perhaps it will be an accordion or a guitar, which you will eventually play at the dances in community halls, earning your share of the $12 the small orchestra received for playing from nine o'clock to four in the morning.
As farm families moved up north or to irrigated land in Alberta or orchards in British Columbia, country schools closed and the closest gathering places were gone. As roads and communications improved after the Second World War, smaller villages lost business and began a decline into extinction. There was still Saturday night shopping in my town, a pool room, a beer parlour and long line-ups at the movie theatre. Then came television. I remember canvassing for some worthy cause and finding in most homes women washing dishes while their men and their buddies were in the recreation room with their eyes glued to a to a black and white television screen. The images on the snowy screen were their reality. I was an intruder. The hotel beverage room lost customers. There were idle tables at the poolroom and no line-ups at the theatre. Both businesses disappeared.
For most of the 20th century post offices were gathering places on the days the mail came in, usually by train. There are fewer post offices now, fewer miles of railway tracks and trains carry only container freight and bulk commodities.
Community halls, with their bi-monthly dances, were part of the mating game. The small rural churches were where the lovers married. In too many places in the countryside, the halls and churches are only memories.
As telephone service improved, telephone etiquette deteriorated. As a customer in a line-up, I have been annoyed many times when disembodied voices on a telephone jumped to the head of the line. Since the advent of ubiquitous cellular phone technology, the situation has grown worse. We communicate endlessly with people we will never see, touch or love. In doing so, we neglect our own communities and their needs and even our religious faith.
I wish I could go back to watch farm boys playing baseball on a hot summer day. I wish I could join the dancing ghosts in a deserted community hall. Old as I am, I would like to dance again with the most beautiful girl in the place. She was, and is, the most important part of my reality.
Entertainment and communication are always available by way of the miniaturized technological marvels we carry. But we are not gathering together with real people. We are paying for a new form of isolation.
