Thomas Cave's Tattoo: Sleepless In Seattle

"Thomas Cave's Tattoo"

I've started a blog that discusses what I call the New Great Depression - the idea that the next few years will constitute a Depression era, and not simple recession. I believe that to understand it in that way will enrich it, and encourage everyone in this country to make this era a creative period, a positive time, an act of construction, and not a cause for panic, chaos and fear. This is a chance for renaissance.

If the New Great Depression produces art, literature, theater, film, community, and a discovery of human value, as the first one did, who wouldn't want to be a part of it.

I am here to barter, trade, share, talk, listen, discuss, argue, understand, make fun, and make peace with the lack of the old prosperity. It was corrupt, and corroded, and it's gone. The dead weight of spoils has been lifted.

Thank you for listening, ma'am.

"About Thomas Cave"

Mr. Cave is the gentleman in the photograph that graces this home page. The photograph was taken by the American photographer Dorothea Lange, who so powerfully documented the country and its citizens during the Great Depression. I found this photograph at www.shorpy.com, a website with a specialty in Depression images. According to Shorpy's site, the Lange photograph, titled "535-07-5248 and Wife," was taken in Oregon in August of 1939. The gentleman is described as an unemployed lumber worker. His tattoo is his Social Security number, by which he is referred to in the title of the photograph. A public records search conducted by Shorpy's revealed that the number belonged to Thomas Cave, who was born in 1912 and died in 1980 in Portland. His wife's name, Ann Kathryn, who died in 2000, appears on their tombstone, a photograph of which is appended under Shorpy's readers' comments.

Mr. Cave is 27 years old in Lange's picture.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Sleepless In Seattle

Furniture Today reports that mattress sales plunged 41% domestically, and domestic mattress units were down 39%. This is news to lose sleep over. Where, might I ask, are you going to keep your money when all the banks fail?

People - Rest In Peace. Take one child out of private school (let them draw straws: bendable-cuppy ones), but, in the words of the country song, don't use a stone for a pillow.

On a positive note, Mint, the personal money management website, has posted a story, "7 Financial Tips From The Great Depression," which is very much in the spirit of "Thomas Cave's Tattoo." Read and enjoy it.

What, you might well be wondering, is the spirit of "Thomas Cave's Tattoo"?

Hopefully, time will reveal it to be a home, for the constructive virtues of being in a bad situation and making the very best of it. Great Depression virtues of handiness, thrift and invention. And instruction and help with the New Great Depression household in everything from cooking to sewing to singing while you're drinking (or not), keeping mind and body together, and entertaining life's larger thoughts as you watch the campfire and they fly out the top, sparks towards the stars. Let's grasp their meaning before they go black.

Thank you for listening, ma'am.

(FYI, the painting above, "Unemployed in Jungles Outside Seattle, Wash., Cooking Up a Mulligan from Meat and Vegetables Gathered from Nearby Farms, is a watercolor and ink in the collection of the Washington State Historical Society.)

Thomas Cave's Tattoo