THE NEW DEAL & THE ALPHABET

Wallace A. Johnson MBA
Apollo Project Test Pilot
CDR. Spaceship DEWAJ
Senior Navigator Test Pilot

It would help you immensely, if you were my age or thereabouts, to understand what I am about to tell you. I remember distinctly hearing the inaugural speech given by the new elected president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was notably remembered by historians as the message where he said that “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” I could be wrong about the exact words, but that was its meaning. That famous quote was followed by his saying that the nation needed a “New Deal.” and that leads me to the Alphabet.

Government agencies are notorious for acronyms, and I can understand the dilemma a new agency has when it has to tie its name with its function. I can relate to the problem in my own personal way. Let me digress for a moment. Many of you know that my wife’s name was Doris Elizabeth. So I tied her first two initials DE, into my initials WAJ, and came up with DEWAJ as an acronym for my DBA (Doing Business As) license. Also, DE in Spanish stands for “of” and it tied in well with the WAJ portion. So for years I used DEWAJ in many ways, including the registration of a Star in the constellation of Sagitta near Sagitarius to be designated as DEWAJ. I did that as a present to my wife on our wedding anniversary. When I decided to get my own web site, I wanted to use DEWAJ, which explains my doing business as DEWAJ Synergy International. That has worked well for some years now and I continue to use it to this day. However, when my wife died, I decided to really start concentrating on my web site in earnest. So I decided to have my own Spaceship and naturally I wanted to call it Spaceship DEWAJ. So far so good, I had used DEWAJ OK, but to tie the acronym to it was a problem. It took some time, but all of a sudden it hit me like a bolt of lightning. DEWAJ A “Daring Enterprise With A Journey.” and it fit perfectly. The idea was to have a Spaceship which would use Synergy to accomplish its mission to remain in orbit long after I am gone. By including others, we would use synergy and end up with an end result whose sum would be greater than the sum of the individual parts. I thought it to be a brilliant idea as an acronym and I’m real proud of it. So now my job is to make the acronym well known on the internet. That’s a daunting task, and I know I can’t do it alone. But if I can get any exposure at all, and with help from others who will be either Passive Passengers or Active Joint Venture Partners, I know that using Synergy, it can be done. Enough of that, to get back to “The New Deal & The Alphabet”

New administrations, whether government or private, are prone to come in with a new broom and give the place a clean sweep as it were. Roosevelt did this as well. So to give us all a “New Deal” required the building up of vast bureaucracies, all with high sounding names. Bureaucratic Alphabetization which was nothing new in government circles, really took off. If you can remember some of these, it will date you for sure, but I don’t care, in my case, you know I’m 80 right now, and I remember it with some nostalgia. Just to name a few. Do you remember the N.R.A. (National Recovery Act), how about the W.P.A. (Work Projects Administration), you can see the results of many projects completed under the W.P.A. to this day in the form of libraries, bridges, dams etc. The C.C.C. was another favorite one, especially for young kids who couldn’t find employment anywhere else. Here is a list I found and what they represented including some important dates.

United States bank holiday, 1933: closed all banks until they became certified by federal reviewers
Abandonment of gold standard, 1933: allowed more Money to be put in circulation to create a mild inflation
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 1933: employed young adults to perform unskilled work for the federal government
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 1933: a government program that ran a series of dams built on the Tennessee River
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), 1933: provided breadlines and other aid to the unemployed
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), 1933: paid farmers to not grow crops
National Recovery Act (NRA), 1933: created fair standards in favor of labor unions
Civil Works Administration (CWA), 1933: provided temporary jobs to millions of unemployed
Public Works Administration (PWA), 1933: employed middle-aged skilled workers to work on public projects, cost $4 billion
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) / Glass-Steagall Act: insures deposits in banks in order to restore public confidence in banks
Securities Act of 1933, created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 1933: codified standards for sale and purchase of stock, required risk of investments to be accurately disclosed
Indian Reorganization Act, 1934
Social Security Act (SSA), 1935: provided financial assistance to: elderly, handicapped, delinquent, unemployed; paid for by employee and employer payroll contributions
Works Progress Administration (WPA), 1935: a reiteration of the PWA, created useful work for skilled workers
National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) / Wagner Act, 1935: granted right of labor unions to exist
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 1938: established a maximum normal work week of 40 hours, and a minimum pay of 40 cents/hour

Although Roosevelt was attacked then as now for that matter, you would be hard pressed to get rid of some of those programs that are still with us today, even though they may have a different name. Social Security is one example. However, I want to point out some incongruities that to this day I don’t understand. Take for example the A.A.A. where farmers were paid NOT to grow crops. I understand the law of supply and demand and the need for a market to exist, but I can remember kerosene being poured on piles and piles of oranges then having them set on fire to destroy them, all the while, I would give my right arm just for the chance to savor the beautiful fruit denied me because I couldn’t afford to buy it. I can also remember agents of the government rounding up many head of cattle into a lot and indiscriminately shooting them dead. You would think, hoof and mouth decease, but it wasn’t that at all, just that there were TOO MANY cattle on the market and to sustain a price on cattle, you had to have a scarcity. All the while there were an awful lot of people who weren’t eating much meat believe me, and I was one of them.
These are just a few of the things that I remember occurring during that time which made me very cognizant of social conditions and some of the inequities that existed, many for no reason at all that made any sense to me. Somehow, my family survived. In my next entry to my blog, I’ll let you know how I did my best to understand and survive as well.

LIFE IN THE 30's. (Cont.)

Wallace A. Johnson MBA
Apollo Project Test Pilot
CDR Spaceship DEWAJ
Senior Navigator Test Pilot

It was 1935 when my father died. I was 11. I had a Sister (Wanda) who was 9, and a brother (Willis), who was 7 and the youngest of the three. Mother did her best to hold the family together and I did my best to take my fathers place since I was the older of the three children. Mother ended up working as a seamstress for the WPA (Works Progress Administration). Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the president of the United States and his "New Deal" with its alphabetism of Federal Agencies, was an attempt at government to solve the ensuing problems associated with the results of the market crash of 29. Were it not for some of those programs, I really don't know what our family would have done. My mother had two brothers and a sister that lived in Houston and I remember that my uncle Raphael moved in to help mother with the rent. It was the sum total of $12.00 a month for a two bedroom apartment. I still remember the address as 1213 Decatur St. and I was attending Dow Junior High School.

But let me go back a little and fill you in on some of the little things that I remember during that time which made such an impression on me as a young boy. Before my father died, he arrived in Houston with some savings, and I remember him going up to Navasota and the Hemstead area of Texas to look at some land to buy thinking that maybe if things really got bad he could somehow live off the land if he had to. I can see him now reaching down and picking up some of the loam and crushing it in his hand and actually smelling it, as if to get a feel for its quality. I know now that he was trying to determine whether the land would be fruitful and able to sustain a family of five. Thank God he decided that there was no way the land could support us. It too was worn out and useless so we returned to Houston where he ultimately bought the Texaco Filling station.

While in the Navasota area, we stayed with my Uncle Fernando and his wife Malcom whom he had recently married. Her father had a small farm, and it somehow fed us all and kept us together. Here is where I got an appreciation for the land and the other animals we shared our meager existence with. You have to see how the lower animals struggle to survive the visitations we as humans bring to them. You have to see animals give birth, then those born become beast of burdern followed by their dying, to marvel at the wonder of it all. And you dont have to be too sharp of mind to realize that somehow we as animals fall into the same circumstance as we live our human experience. To survive, we as humans have somewhat of an advantage due to our higher intelligence, but sometimes I am saddened when I realize how little we think of the lower animals and the way we treat them. I remember vividly one occassion when a poor mule was being used to drag a scupper which was used to take out the muck and mud at the bottom of what was actually a drinking pond for the animals. It was low on water and the mule would walk through the mud and the scupper would take out the mud. Unfortunatelly, the poor mule got bogged down in the mud up to is belly, it coudn't move out on its own much less pull the scupper through the muck and mud. The farm owner who at the time was drunk and mad with rage at the mule, took a chain and started to beat the poor animal. The animal was crying out in terror at the pain inflicted on him and I in turn who was watching this bestiality was crying out loud as well. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Undoubtedly the drunkard thought that if he inflicted enough pain on the animal, the animal would somehow miraculously gain sufficient strength to extricate himself from its predicament. It ultimately required chains being wrapped aroud the neck of the animal and a string of men literrally had to drag the poor beast out. How that animal survived his treatment at the hands of that man is beyond me, but I think of that episode often when I see someone mistreat a lower animal for no reason at all. I believe it is a sad reflection on the human conditions when we treat animals the way we do only because they are "lower" animals. If we allow our children to mistreat animals, then why should we be surprised when those children become adults, and have little regard for the feelings of humans? They have become desensitized to those feelings necessary to understand the sanctity of a living being, whether a lower animal or a higher human animal. There are too many of us that have forgotten that humans are animals too. It's no wonder it is so easy to have men kill each other in this thing called "war." The lower animals kill as a necessity for survival, whereas man kills in many cases for no reason that has anything to do with survival. As I said, it's a sad reflection on the human condition.

As I said previously, when by father returned to Houston he bought a Texaco filling station as an investment. My aunt Mary's husband Joe Ferguson ran the station for him. It was onLeeland Ave, and I remember it well. However, as you can imagine, any investment during those years quite oftern went sour. Nothing seemed to work out and in short order the small stake he brought back to the States after leaving Cuba, dwindled and he found himself just as broke as many others were in those dark days. It wasn't too long after, that he had an accident at the refinery. His health suffered and his spirit as well. His body slowly gave in and he died a rather sudden death. His death certificate says he died of Uremic Poisoning due to Kidney failure. In those days, a lot of people died for reasons unknown. Pneumonia was often the culprit, and in my fathers case I don't really know what the cause of death was exactly. I believe, it was more from a broken heart than anything else. We believe he was 49 at the time.

THE DEPRESSION YEARS Cont. Life In The 30's.

Wallace A. Johnson MBA
Apollo Project Test Pilot
CDR Spaceship DEWAJ
Senior Navigator Test Pilot

LIFE IN THE 30's

Things were rough in the 30's. My Mother did all she could to keep the family together after my Father passed away. I was 11 and doing rather well in school, but it wasn't without the help of some people I will never forget. In particular, my music teacher Ms. Norris. I was laboring to master the violin and cello, and as it happens from time to time, one of my strings would break, and there I would be. I couldn't afford to buy strings, but somehow, the next time it came to be at practice, Ms. Norris would hand me the necessary string. I know she couldn't afford those extra expenses herself, but as a substitute teacher currently, I know that teachers quite often supply their students with necessary items which students can't afford themselves. Teachers are a special lot, at least the good ones are, and Ms. Norris was one of those. She was very instrumental in my appreciation of music in all of its forms and she was a very imnportant part in the eventual formulation of the person I am now and have been in the past. She was a kind soul and I will never forget her.

Another person I will never forget was a Mr. Ben Duggan. He was an executive for an insurance company there in Houston, Texas. He was notified about my particular circumstances by my home room teacher Ms. Fern Smith. He took it upon himself to more or less adopt the family, me in particular since I was the older of my syblings. I remember on one occassion being taken to a professional baseball game for the first time. It was the Houston Buffaloes, and we had seats right behind home plate. I'm not much on sports, but I was impressed with the whole thing and now realize how kind he was to me and my family. I saw him as a good man who was just trying to do a kind act out of the goodness of his heart. During the war, while I was overseas, my mother wrote me inform me of his passing by sending me a clipping of his obituary which was in the Houston Chronicle. I still have that clipping believe it or not. He was a special person, put on this earth for a special reason, and I now realize I was part of it in a small way. I came to find out that my family wasn't the only one who he helped and he was highly respected in the Houston business community for his various charities.

I mentioned my home room teacher Ms. Fern Smith. If there ever was an angel who walked the earth, she was one. I had her in the third grade while I was attending Hawthorne Elementary School. Let me digress for a moment. While living in Cuba, I had attended school on refinery grounds and was in the third grade. All classes were taught in spanish. I was lucky because my mother would speak to me in Spanish and my Father would speak to me in English. I always responded in Spanish. So I understood both, but my main tongue was Spanish. When I started school in Houston, with my language problems, I was put in the first grade. I picked up my English speaking abilities rapidly and within a years time found myself in the third grade. So I was at the proper grade level for my age in no time. Ms. Smith, was my home room teacher at the time my father passed away and took an immediate interest in me and my family. She became very close to the family and would visit from time to time insuring all was well and that we were being cared for. She was the person who told Mr. Duggan about my family and I kept in constant contact with her with personal visits and correspondence through the years
My first letter from her came when she wrote on the passing of my father. I still have that letter. I wrote to her and visited with her on many occassions through the years until her passing when she was in her 90's. She was an old maid, never married, who was very frugal, but somehow amassed an impresive portfolio of stock holdings and real estate, which came to a sizable sum. I remember clearly, during WWII, I was on leave one day, and I visited her. She was having her lawn mowed by a young boy who lived next door to her and she introduced me to him. I remember the occassion well, because although I was 19 or so at the time, he made an impression on me, for it was obvious Ms. Smith thought well of him. Ms. Smith dabbled in oil paintings and was quite prolific with pastoral scenes and flowers. During one of my letter writings to her in the 90's, I received a letter from an attorney by the name of Kennedy. He informed me of her passing, that he was her lawyer and was the executor of her estate. He informed me that in her estate, she had mentioned me by name, and that I was to have the choice of three of her paintings. Not only was I shocked to hear of her passing, but the fact that she remembered me in this special way was totally unexpected. I have those paintings to this day and I cherish them, but the most surprising thing of this commentary, is the fact that the attorney who contacted me about my legacy was the very same young boy who lived next door to her and to whom I had been introduced to while on Navy leave in 1944. I'ts funny how unimportant little things can seem to be at the time they take place only to realize much later that the moment was a pivotal one in future events. Maybe there is a lesson here for us to consider. I personaly believe that every moment is precious, and that it should be reflected on as important to the extreme. Now that I am in my autumn years, I realize how true this is.

MY SPACESHIP DEWAJ

DEWAJ

A "DARING ENTERPRISE WITH A JOURNEY"

As a former Test Pilot on the Apollo Project, I have always dreamed what it would be like if I could have had my own Spaceship. Through the medium of the Internet, I can now fantasize. This Blog will be part of that fantasy. This Blog will be an attempt at telling you how Spaceship DEWAJ came to be.

SOME PERSONAL HISTORY

At the age of 80, time flies and the days shorten. Widowed, and without children, I can see that those who through the years have asked me to put into words, my rambling thoughts, inspirations, ideas, mistakes, adventures, travels, etc. have a point. Not that anything I might say will change much, for I don't think that anything I might say will have that much influence, but in fact it has been in the back of my mind for some time now. So here it is at last.

I'm one of those who live in California that was actually born here. My birthplace was Taft, Ca. and my birthday is 18 April 1925. Taft, California is oil refinery country. My father worked for Standard Oil Co. and before I was six months old, my father returned to Havana, Cuba, where he had formely married my mother. As the Superintindent of the Beloit, refinery in Havana, we lived on Sandard Oil Co. refinery grounds. I had a brother Willis, and a sister Wanda, who were born there. We lived well, and my childhood memories are those of a loving father and mother who dolted over their children, especially me. However, those of you that remember your history will recall a revolution took place in Cuba in 1932. With Cuban soldiers bivuoacked on our front lawn to protect the refinery, it didn't take my father long to decide that the safety of his family was paramount. So in late 1932 we returned to Houston, Texas.

Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire! The depression years were upon us, and times were rough. This was especially the case, when due to an accident at the refinery my father had an untimely death. That left my mother alone, with no skills other than being a good wife and mother with three young and quite often hungry children. As I said, times were rough. More to come.