A different memory

Remembering Burma Shave signs brought up another memory of my youth that would seem to be depressing, but actually gives me a feeling of triumph. It is of the years of the Midwest Crime Wave when big-time criminals drove up and down old highway 12 from St. Paul to Chicago, a highway that was only about a quarter of a mile from our house. It was completed when I was about ten or so, and since the years of the crime wave were from 1932 to 1935, I remember it well. The movies portray these bank-robbers and kidnappers as being admired and emulated by the depression-poor citizens,, but that wasn't the case. We greatly feared them. When they would "pull a job" the telephone would spread the news up and down the wire lines. One night the filling station in town was robbed and the man who owned it, who happened to be my teacher's father, was shot and killed. The telephone operator called ahead to try to get them trapped but I think they got away. The town bank was robbed by men with masks on their faces and guns in their hands. They got away with the money but luckily didn't fire a shot.
There were many small gangs led by notorious killers, among whom were John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelley, and Bonnie and Clyde Barrow. They operated all over the midwest, but one by one they were apprehended, usually resulting in several deaths, as the FBI grew in strength and numbers. By 1936 it was all over.
The telephone was our connection to the rest of the world. We were on a party line and when the phone would ring, everyone up and down the road would pick up the receiver. There was no such thing as a private line. Sometimes two or three people would be on the line giving advice on illnesses or accidents, and it wasn't unknown for help to be on the way as soon as the news was out. My grandmother always hurried down the minute she felt she was needed.
I guess my feeling of triumph is the same as one feels when a crises passes and all is once again safe. Well, one thinks, I made it. I made it, and I'm still here. The depression lasted from 1929 to 1941, when wartime needs provided everyone with a paying job. It was a war we all supported, a war we felt would make the world safe forever. Now we know we were wrong.