In a couple of months, I will be 90 years old. My oh my! Where have all the years gone? My mind is beginning to play tricks on me. I can vividly remember what happened one day in 1933, but I cannot remember what I did yesterday.

Since I don’t remember yesterday, let me tell you what happened 78 years ago. But first, I want to give you some background.

From 1929 to 1936, I lived with my parents on a 160-acre farm 150 miles north of Minneapolis. Even though I was only 12 years old, I was very much interested in current events. I always read the Fergus Falls Daily Journal. I saw stories of the Great Depression. I saw pictures of people standing in food lines. There was one picture I will never forget. It was of large quantities of milk being dumped down the gutter in Minneapolis. How could this be? Destroying food!

Franklin D. Roosevelt had just been elected president. He was trying all sorts of things to improve the economy. Some of those programs are still in place today. Some were found to be unconstitutional and others were simply forgotten.

I think the idea of destroying food was to have less of it and thereby the farmers would get higher prices for their products. Soon this was extended to the idea of paying farmers not to grow wheat. On the one hand, people were starving. On the other hand, food was being destroyed. Even a 12-year-old kid could see that there was something wrong.

Since we lived on a farm, we never were without food, but income was limited. One source of income was to sell calves when they were a few months old. My dad would call a local trucker who would take livestock to sell in the stockyards of St Paul.

Now I want to tell you of that tragic day in the summer of 1933.

We had two calves ready to sell. My dad sent me out into the pasture to bring them to the barn. I took my dog, Sport, with me. He was a small terrier given to me by my grandfather. He was a feisty little dog, but I really liked him. Sport nipped at the heels of one of the calves. The calf kicked him and broke his hind left leg. I had to carry him back to the house.

It was time for the trucker to arrive. Instead of the trucker, two “government” men showed up. They carried a gun. They explained to my dad that they would kill the calves and pay my dad the same as he would have received had he sold them. So they killed the calves. Then they stayed with us until we dug a hole and buried them. We were not supposed to use the meat.

My dad shot Sport and we buried him with the two calves. I took the largest rock I could carry and placed it on the grave.

Seventy years later, I went back to that farm for a visit. I walked behind the barn. Sure enough, there was that same rock still where I had placed it. I didn’t have the courage to tell the new owner what that rock represented.

Have we learned anything from our experiences in the Great Depression? Frankly, I don’t think so.

Three years ago, my brother took me for a drive through the beautiful farm country in Minnesota. It seems to me that all the farmers are now rich. There were beautiful farm houses. There were even more beautiful barns. Each farm had at least four or five blue Harvestore silos.

Back in 1933, farmers grew wheat, oats, barley and corn. Now I noticed that the only crop was corn. Why? The one word answer is ethanol. The effect is the same as it was in 1933. Farmers are being paid not to grow wheat. The price of wheat goes up. Have you bought a loaf of bread lately?

Leo J. Thoennes, Federal Way