As we are in the midst of a fairly substantial economic recession – to the point that one might consider it a full blown depression – I find it important to stop and think about the depressions of the past.

Join me, if you will, in reminiscing back through time.

The year was 1929. The month, October. The Dow Jones sat at a whopping 381.17 points – the highest the world had ever seen!

Then along came Death Tuesday (since we are from a culturally diverse campus, I find it important to not be discriminatory. Who says black is a bad thing? I think that we can all agree that death is a bad thing.).

Well, you all know what happened from there. The stock market crashed; people jumped out of windows; and the time period was forever dubbed, “The Dirty, Rotten, Horrible, No-Good, Very-Bad Depression.” End of story.

WAIT! For all of you about ready to jump out of windows, there is a better ending!

It was really called the “Great Depression!” Here is where the true bethinking (fancy word for recollecting – I like being lexiphanic) comes into play. There must have been a reason that it was called the Great Depression. I have a gut feeling that I know why.

Think about it: first off, no one ever had to work! Really, how great would it be if that happened again? All day every day we would lounge about our communities musing about life and other deep things such as how many bytes are in a kilogram, or how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Also, we would all get to camp out – EVERY NIGHT! So you got kicked off your farm, or, these days, your suburban mini-mansion. It would be like permanent camping!

Just think about that for a bit. To think about the experience is awesome, let alone if it were an actuality. You would not even have to go through the annoyance of packing tents up all the time and the fire would already be going in the morning. Books – like learning in general – would no longer be needed and really do make the best kindling. I tell ya, that’s the life.

You might think that the fun stops there, but the answer to that is NO!

“What else could there be?” you have undoubtedly asked your neighbor, cat, teddy bear or other random inanimate object you might be sitting next to.

Low prices! Seriously, gas costs like 15 cents per gallon. That may be a year’s wages, but why dwell on the negative? Just think: you can’t even buy a pack of gum for that anymore.

And now for the most important thing of all, since only the great presidents get things named after them – the Washington Monument; Washington, D.C.; Washington the state; George Washington Carver; washing the dishes; the Lincoln Memorial; Ford Lincoln; Lincoln Park Zoo; Linkin Park; Hoover Vacuum; Hoover Institution; Hoovervilles.

I think that it is important to give Obama the opportunity to be remembered along with these other great presidents.

Try to keep these positives in mind, and so long as we all remain in the safety bubble of the Goshen College campus, we should all make it through OK.