Who Here Started Out Dirt Poor?

Wow, au. 1929 indeed.

I was sort of poor. Lack of money was a constant background -- couldn't afford to go to that camp, couldn't afford nicer clothes. Had a crappy old car. That kind of thing.

I knew some people with a lot more money and I thought that would be nice, but I don't remember being mad at them or jealous.

We weren't really dirt poor -- we had enough food to eat (if it tended towards cheap cuts of meat -- lots of tongue and liver), we had a decent house in a decent neighborhood, I did go to camps, etc.

It's not so much my childhood that stands out when I think of being poor as my college years. I didn't know ASL/ didn't have interpreters for the first few years, just tried to get along by lipreading and doing a LOT of independent work. That whole thing was exhausting, and I couldn't do well in school and hold down a job at the same time. So I had minimal financial aid, very little financial assistance from my parents, and no income.

Then in the summer before my 4th year I started to learn ASL, and that was exhausting too -- learning the language, in and of itself, but also training my eyes to keep watching something, non-stop, for an hour at a time. (It's harder than you might think.) Finally, once I became fluent in ASL, I started working in addition to taking classes, and things got less desperate.

But that was actually pretty poor for a while there. Like, genuine excitement at finding a quarter poor. ("Only 3 more and I can afford a hamburger!")

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a one dollar hamburger.... damn!!!!! dirt poor AND old as dirt Laughing

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Hey, they still have 99-cent burgers at your more disgusting fast food joints... don't they? (Just the burger, no fancy-pants sides or anything...)

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wouldn't know... I don't eat fast food...

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When I first got married we were living with another couple, because we didn't even have a place to live! How's that one... not even having our own place.

Seriously, I feel like me and my better half have really come a long way. We now have degrees and careers, and we live in a nice neighborhood with no credit card debt.

When I see people struggling to move up in the world, I sometimes try and motivate them to just enjoy your time each day and not worry about what you don't have yet... just stick with it, and eventually the debt will go away and you'll be able to improve your standard of living. I never just act smug or anything. Some people have asked for money advice, and have benefitted from what I've been able to share with them.

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Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

wouldn't know... I don't eat fast food...

cuz yer too old to catch it.

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You know, poverty isn't bad because you drive an old, rusted out pos. It's bad because you don't know if it's going to run tomorrow, and when the next paper thin tire is going to blow.

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Quote:

a one dollar hamburger.... damn!!!!! dirt poor AND old as dirt

watch it , i say ! i may be dirt poor but still not quite as old as dirt :wink:
THE UPSCALE hamburger ( i read that in NYC you can pay over $ 50 for a burger!)

btw , i recall that THE RED BARN sold four burgers for 99 cents in the sixties .

Quote:

The most expensive burger in New York City
January 12 2003
New York

A 20-ounce (560-gram) hamburger fashioned from ultra-tender Kobe beef debuted this week at the landmark Old Homestead restaurant in New York. At $US41 ($A71.32), it is believed to be the most expensive hamburger in the city. And yes, it comes with fries.

It is the first time the 135-year-old steakhouse has put a burger on its menu. The restaurant bills it as "The World's Most Decadent Hamburger".

"This is not about price," restaurant owner Marc Sherry said, when the restaurant sold nearly 200 of the new burgers in the first four days.

"This is an event."

Kobe beef, imported from Japan, comes from cattle raised on beer and massaged daily to make the meat soft and succulent.

The burger, which has a piece of herb butter in the middle of each patty, comes on a special roll with exotic mushrooms and microgreens - shredded baby lettuce.

Put away the bottled ketchup. The burger comes with a homemade ketchup, mustard or horseradish sauce.

"And it's served," Sherry added, "with our classic garlic shoestring fries."

DO THEY HAVE A DRIVE-THRU ?

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Funny, hbg.

My dad kept his job throughout the depression. With a steady income he could have bought foreclosed property for next to nothing. My sister told me that he refused to make money off someone else's misery.

At my ancestral home in Virginia, there was always a vegetable garden. I came along rather late in life so I had to be instructed in these things to make me appreciate what we had and to be grateful for it.

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hamburger wrote:

Quote:
a one dollar hamburger.... damn!!!!! dirt poor AND old as dirt

watch it , i say ! i may be dirt poor but still not quite as old as dirt :wink:
THE UPSCALE hamburger ( i read that in NYC you can pay over $ 50 for a burger!)

btw , i recall that THE RED BARN sold four burgers for 99 cents in the sixties .

Quote:
The most expensive burger in New York City
January 12 2003
New York

A 20-ounce (560-gram) hamburger fashioned from ultra-tender Kobe beef debuted this week at the landmark Old Homestead restaurant in New York. At $US41 ($A71.32), it is believed to be the most expensive hamburger in the city. And yes, it comes with fries.

It is the first time the 135-year-old steakhouse has put a burger on its menu. The restaurant bills it as "The World's Most Decadent Hamburger".

"This is not about price," restaurant owner Marc Sherry said, when the restaurant sold nearly 200 of the new burgers in the first four days.

"This is an event."

Kobe beef, imported from Japan, comes from cattle raised on beer and massaged daily to make the meat soft and succulent.

The burger, which has a piece of herb butter in the middle of each patty, comes on a special roll with exotic mushrooms and microgreens - shredded baby lettuce.

Put away the bottled ketchup. The burger comes with a homemade ketchup, mustard or horseradish sauce.

"And it's served," Sherry added, "with our classic garlic shoestring fries."

DO THEY HAVE A DRIVE-THRU ?

OMG! I live in Wisconsin! Why in the world is no one here raising cattle on beer???? I believe I've just been pointed to the path from dirt-poor to filthy stinking rich!!!

Oh, wait, I can't stand farming.

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I think the answer to that is in Wisconsin, most places the liquor stores all close at nine, and cows are notoriously late night drinkers.

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Rockhead wrote:

I think the answer to that is in Wisconsin, most places the liquor stores all close at nine, and cows are notoriously late night drinkers.

Hmmm...I fogot about that. I should know after so many keggers in the woods that I had to cross the pasture to get to. The cows wouldn't let you pass until you gave them a beer.

And yeah, that 9:00 thing is a pain in the arse.

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dirt poor.

Father was the town drunk, mother worked to support his drinking and try (mostly unsuccessfully) to keep the bill collectors away. Hunger was no stranger and hand-me-downs were the norm. Holidays were the worst.

Got a free ride to college and worked my ass off. Never stepped on a soul.

As to my outlook on the poor -- I have extreme empathy for children and the sick or working poor. I have no empathy for drunks.

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good for you jpb.... and good for you for rising above your beginnings..

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Thanks, bear.

What's been hard is striking a balance with my kids. We live pretty frugally in comparison to our community and my kids are surrounded by the haves who have everything money can buy. They certainly aren't have nots, but it's all relative.

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jake wrote :

Quote:

OMG! I live in Wisconsin! Why in the world is no one here raising cattle on beer???? I believe I've just been pointed to the path from dirt-poor to filthy stinking rich!!!

Oh, wait, I can't stand farming.

that shouldn't be a major handicap as long as you can interest others to start a beef raisng enterprise with you .
you can always offer to feed the cattle with the beer , that'll make you popular with them :wink:
hbg

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Well, we ate a lot of macaroni and ground beef, not to mention the dreaded powdered milk, too...the food ran out part-way through the month, and then there was mostly bread and butter and no fruit or veg at all. Lots of liver and potatoes, though.

I remember my sister and I (she was 10 and I was 9) making selling cookies and peppermints in the neighbourhood in order to have some spending money. We had to pay my mother back for the supplies first, though.

And I babysat 4 kids (in one family), ranging from 6 months to 6 years, for 25 cents an hour, when I was 10, and I did the housework, baths, dinners, and everything.

And my older sister and I sold Name-On (now Regal) at Christmas for extra cash - same ages, 9 and 10.

I think I had the first sidewalk sale Smile

And we did the obligatory pop bottle collecting...

Course, this was back when popsicles were 6 cents, pop and chips 10 cents each... double-bubble was 2 cents... remember those good ol' days? heh heh

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Born into a band of migrant workers. Raised in California with a stepfather, who lived pretty well, while the other thirteen of us lived on a welfare check paid to support the three oldest boys. Through it all, I did not become a criminal. Have always worked for what I received. Still dirt poor, but, but at least I have friends and a loving family.

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Born middle class, spent teenage years in varieties of family deep ****. My father went from high position low to medium to high to low to lower, between the years I was 12 - 17, and after that dropped off the scope.

I am familiar with tongue, liver and sometimes a can of tuna and boiled carrots for dinner, for the three of us. Did not get a CSF scholarship, as when I was seventeen, our income looked good based on one period of, oh, eight weeks, and I was dumb enough not to ever re apply. Went to university, free, no tuition back then, local, by bus, working all the while. Never cared about money, as I thought I'd have at least lab tech income and was more interested in ... interesting people and things to do.

Interesting brought me to marrying/supporting a playwright/screenwriter, thus having no savings (quick summary of decades). Then I got bad eye stuff, not to whine, but it kept me out of serious jobs that I was a shoo-in for. For years I've had a not so trim middle class mind - if not a business mind - on a low budget, and it has gotten way lower.

Thing is, I'm not sorry about any of it. My life has been rich.

As to my empathy for others, it's pretty expansive, across various lines people draw... even if I have my crabby ways on a2k.

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Awesome thread, Bear. Responses, witty at first, but turning more serious. Some from folks I know, but many from folks I don't. (I am actually just marking this).

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Who Here Started Out Dirt Poor?

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