Welcome to the Depression

By Si Dunn

West Texas is the wrong place to be driving while listening to the latest job-loss figures, the latest appeals for bailout money, and the latest--deeply gloomy-- prognostications from learned economists.

Parts of Highway 287 between Decatur and Amarillo seem like the surface of Mars. Rugged, uninhabited land for miles and miles; low hills in the distance.

What looks like patches of snow in some fields turns out to be cotton left unpicked because of falling demand and weakening prices.

Now and then, a house appears along the highway--windowless, holes in the roof, abandoned years ago. Its nearby barn is missing boards and shingles and leans precariously toward collapse. Or, it has already fallen into a rotted, weatherbeaten heap.

At dreary rest stops along the highway, signs implore people heading into the restrooms to "Watch Out for Snakes."

It's too cold for rattlesnakes on this early December day. But there is plenty of wind sweeping tumbleweeds across the road. A big one suddenly rolls and hops into my grille and hangs there like a small, dead Christmas ornament in the 70-MPH slipstream.

The seemingly unending land occasionally gives way to small towns along the highway. I pull into one to get gas and stuff the tumbleweed into the pumpside trash can. Nearby, almost every building in the small business district is abandoned. Some were boarded up decades ago, in a previous economic downturn, and never reopened. But some of the newer buildings sport fresh plywood or empty windows festooned with "For Sale" or "For Lease" signs. Even a church building is for sale.

In one small town not far from Amarillo, however, there is one small sign sign of hope along the road. A restaurant advertises: "Now Hiring Smiling Faces."

But as I pass the sign, an economist being inteviewed on a newscast predicts the unemployment rate--already at 6.7 percent--will surpass eight percent in 2009.

The restaurant probably pays $2 an hour plus tips. And there won't be many big tippers among the farmers, ranchers and oilfield workers now watching their incomes fall like meteorites. Will one of them soon become one of the "smiling faces"?

Meanwhile, what will the hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed do, now that their jobs in the financial industry, manufacturing, telecommunications, automobile sales and housing construction have gone away?

They can't all be "smiling faces" at small-town restaurants. They can't all build roads and bridges and clean up parks in a 21st-century rehash of the Works Progress Administration. Where else can they work? Will they now pack up their cars and head west, like 1930s Okies, looking to take away jobs from the illegal immigrants now working in California's agricultural fields?

Another news report on the radio describes an increasing number of two-parent families moving into homeless shelters, because Dad and Mom both have lost their jobs and worn out their resources and the resources of their relatives. The homeless shelters now are desperate for financial help, but companies and individuals are cutting back, because their incomes have fallen.

As I reach Amarillo, I turn off the radio and check into a motel. At the restaurant next door, I eat a small meal. I am the only customer in the place. The dozens of tables, booths and counter chairs are starkly empty. The three waitresses stand and look out the window, hoping for more customers to come in. To have something else to do besides straighten napkin holders and check salt shakers, they occasionally drift by and ask me if my meal is okay and if I need anything.

When I finish, I leave them each a $3 tip. It is all I can do.

In my motel room, I tune the radio to a classical music station. I lie down and let Mozart wash over me. It cleans away some of the day's gloom.

It is all I can do. All I can do.

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