It was a time more like our own than we admit sometimes. The only way out of the economic plight then was for the government to deficit-spend and directly put people to work. Unemployment had hovered around 25 percent when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1932. Farmers had been thrown off the land in large numbers, by erosion and poverty, and many migrated elsewhere, or if you were a young man, without family along, you might ride the rails until something better came up.

The nation needed positive leadership, and FDR provided it. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," he intoned. Alphabet soup was the order of the day, as new government agencies sprang up, including the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Social Security Administration (SSA) and Farm Security Admini-stration (FSA). Critics called it socialism. To a key degree, it was, though not as evil as some said.

The Oakies and Arkies joined Asian-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics and many others in California, praying for work. Dorothea Lange took her most famous photo in Nipomo, at a pea-pickers' camp. Like Florence Thompson, in Lange's "Migrant Mother" portrait, people were desperate, yet they often showed more strength than people today can imagine. Some people had to be satisfied then with the thinnest soup and smallest crust of bread, or even a half-cup of milk, for a meal.

The American nation was still segregated by color and in need of the crucible of sacrifice to bring it together. Erosion and poverty helped do that; but without positive leadership in every part of the nation and hard work, America might not have survived like we know it today.

It has been said FDR lured the Japanese into war in 1941 because his economic programs couldn't rescue the nation sufficiently. Well, if you know what the Germans, Italians and Japanese were doing in the 1930s, you know World War II was more inevitable than any other war in modern times. Teddy Roosevelt, FDR's otherwise heroic cousin, hadn't helped, by signing off on the Russo-Japanese Treaty of 1905. Korea would be under Japanese rule 40 years, and China was open to invasion, as a result. The Rape of Nanking occurred, and many other atrocities, too. And we all know about Germany's Fuhrer and Italy's Il Duce, not to mention, Russia's Stalin and China's Mao.

Today, our president faces many difficult problems. Terrorism around the world threatens our existence, though not as close to home as for people in the Middle East. And his health care reform and economic stimulus packages might mean deficit spending like this country has never known. It'd be nice if Barack Obama would earn his Nobel Peace Prize now, and lead us in fashioning peace and prosperity, soon, for us and the world.

We've been at war eight years, with disastrous economic results and at the cost of too many lives. If the president and his administration can exercise real diplomacy, safely pull our troops out of Afghanistan very soon, and lead the rescue of our economy, too, he'll be remembered as one of our greatest presidents. Though I didn't vote for him, I hope he succeeds, because my son, Matthew, is serving in the U.S. Army, and I don't want Matt to go to war after his training concludes, but, rather, man a camp or two somewhere, not involved in combat. Isn't that what troops should do? Be vigilant, but not shoot guns, etc., anymore than absolutely necessary?

Let's hope our era isn't like the 1930s, in every way. Let's hope peace and prosperity loom directly ahead and that we reach out and grasp them, properly and soon - so all our future Thanksgivings will truly have more positive meanings.

David J. Marcou is a father, writer, photographer and editor.