Book excerpt: Once upon a time, a childhood didn't include cell phones, texting, email and video games; no instant music, flat irons, silky hair products and malls for every good thing, needed or not. After the big money crash in 1929, followed by many years of the Great Depression, our community stuck together. The Depression babies arrived all through the thirties and when World War II arrived, jobs were greatly appreciated but young men went off to fight and so many to die. With the men away at war or working, women joined together to raise the children. An old African saying, it takes a village to raise a child, was recently brought to the fore. This is something I found to be very true during my early years. In fact, it was how our community operated. That's what I found growing up in a small rural southern community centered around church and school. Everybody looked out for each other and relied on each other. Sometimes being close knit spilled over into a lack of privacy, usually it involved gossip, but mostly tender loving care. These are the depression years and the war years my parents' generation endured.