As for the photos, I've added a few from the 54 times I have moved in 57 years. Actually for the past 18, I have lived in the same house so the first 53 were before I turned 40. The last one is from the condo overlooking the ocean from when I was "poor".
Misreading the Signs Along the WayThere had always been signs that we were poor, but as a happy child, I paid them no notice. We might have had less than what others had,but children were starving in faraway China and just down the road in Appalachia and we were not. My stepfather said poor was a term for people whose obstacles were insurmo
untable. He instilled in us the concept that we could be anything we set our minds to and no obstacle should stand in our way. Because we moved often from apartment to apartment in the river city of Newport, it seemed only sensible that we did not have many material objects. Our basic possessions were well cared for and we owned them outright. We kept ourselves tidy and clean and most importantly, we had good manners and good ethics. All seven of us could squeeze into the cab of our pickup truck when the back with filled with furniture and household items. My grandparents and two of my aunts, who believed walking was more sensible, didn’t even own a car. Poor people couldn’t possibly afford such a usual vehicle.
I didn’t even notice the signs that others had more when I left the heat of the city to spend summers with my relatives in the country. To me they were only richer than we were because they did not move every year and at their house, I shared a bed with my cousins and didn’t have to sleep on the sofa like at home. For two lovely weeks in the summer we enjoyed a backyard with grass where we could run through sprinklers and play. Best of all, no one made us drink a full glass of water before each meal or mirror each forkful of food with a bite of bread. For family vacations, Lou would load us in the back of the pickup where we would ride on top of a bed of straw covered by blankets. We would travel to a state park where we strung up a lean-to between trees. Hotdogs on sticks were roasted over a campfire after a day of fishing and swimming in a nearby lake
. Tom Sawyer would have envied our fun.
. Tom Sawyer would have envied our fun. We did not even feel poor at Christmastime. To make holiday cash, our family would take the pickup truck to a nursery and my stepfather and my brothers would spend the day cutting fresh pines that we sold in empty lots downtown. With that money in hand, all five of us would tag along with Mother on Christmas Eve and shiver outside of stores as she bought presents. After shopping we would rush home to enjoy warm cocoa and cookies. We felt as rich as kings as we trimmed our own little tree with popcorn strings and ornaments made from tin foil.
We were not at all like the sad children that we saw on television with raggedy clothes and dirty faces. My mother bought me new five dresses at the end of the summer so I would have one for each day of school. The day before class began, we’d trek to Tom McCann’s for our new pair of shoes. Mother made us take good care of them so we would slip them off each afternoon when we came home. Bare feet were fine for running around the house.
Living quarters were always tight in our small apartments in the city but we managed to fit in whatever space we found. My four brothers always shared the second bedroom while I, with pillow and blanket, would stretch out on the sofa trying to sleep as my parents watched television. Most nights I was awake when the Al Schottlekotte Spotlight Report began at 11 p.m.
When I started high school we moved to yet another apartment with only two bedrooms but this time I had a place of my own. Actually it was just the end of the hallway but I was moving up in the world. Mother bought a twin bed mattress, hung up a curtain and at last I had a bedroom. Somehow still the signs of our poverty were not flashing in my mind. It was not until I was invited to the homes of classmates that those signs began to appear. My girlfriends lived in one-family houses with bedrooms of their own, adorned with pink bedspreads and lacy curtains. Their curtains were so fine, frilly and surely expensive that I was almost afraid to touch them. My own curtains were plastic and easily replaceable by a quick trip to the dollar store.
I was shocked to watch my friends just walk to the fridge and take out a pop or grab a snack from the pantry. At my house, we never had to think about what to eat. Dinner was whatever mother made so there was no need to stand with the refrigerator door wide open. We knew that our fridge held only milk, butter, and day old bread.
It was during my second year of high school that I began to heed the signs that we had so much less than others. I became self-conscious of our plastic curtains and plastic dishes. Unlike my friends, our pantry was never full and we bought our dinner groceries every day. Mother had to wait until Lou came home to send us to the store, hoping that he had made money that day. If not, she would send us to the market with one of her keepsake silver dollars. She had three of them, one dated 1884 representing her father’s birth year, 1898 for her mother and 1926 when she was born. My brothers would ask the storeowner if they could buy the silver dollars back on Friday when mother was paid. Thanks to his kindness her treasures were always returned with Friday’s groceries.
After my brothers were grown, I had to make the trip to the store often with the same request. On one such Friday, while waiting for the walk light, I looked up at our plastic curtains blowing out of an open window. The signs in my mind flashed more brightly than that traffic light saying, “You are poor”. “You are poor,” they shouted as I climbed the four flights of stairs with our dinner. “I am poor,” I moaned as I dropped the grocery bag on the kitchen table.
Having finished high school, with no hopes of college, I took the easy road to success and married a man with money. We lived in a condominium overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. He bought me a diamond ring
and a car that was shiny and new and I had more than five dresses. We vacationed in Europe and skied in the Rockies. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “I am no longer poor.” However, the signs in my head only flashed more brightly. He had married me for my looks and I had married him to have what I thought were the right things. Neither of us was happy so the right things became the wrong things. I knew that I was now truly poor.
and a car that was shiny and new and I had more than five dresses. We vacationed in Europe and skied in the Rockies. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “I am no longer poor.” However, the signs in my head only flashed more brightly. He had married me for my looks and I had married him to have what I thought were the right things. Neither of us was happy so the right things became the wrong things. I knew that I was now truly poor. I left the possessions I foolishly believed would give me joy and once again had little. No matter. I still had good manners and slightly tarnished ethics, and still had the love of my family. I had never really been poor. The proper signs had always been there but I had listened with my head and not with my heart. As my stepfather had said, poor describes people whose obstacles are insurmountable. I, however, am rich.
