To all the folks who think it is sooo easy to be poor...perhaps you may want to read the following I gleaned from a blog...something to think about the next time criticism is heaped on those whom can least afford it....

Being Poor
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.

Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.

Being poor is living next to the freeway.

Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.

Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn't mind when you ask for help.

Being poor is off-brand toys.

Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.

Being poor is knowing you can't leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.

Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt.

Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn't have make dinner tonight because you're not hungry anyway.

Being poor is Goodwill underwear.

Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.

Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.

Being poor is your kid's school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.

Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.

Being poor is relying on people who don't give a damn about you.

Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.

Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.

Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.

Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger's trash.

Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.

Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.

Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.

Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids.

Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.

Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes.

Being poor is hoping you'll be invited for dinner.

Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.

Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.

Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.

Being poor is your kid's teacher assuming you don't have any books in your home.

Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.

Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.

Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually lazy.

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first.

Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that's two extra packages for every dollar.

Being poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old.

Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.

Being poor is knowing you're being judged.

Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.

Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.

Being poor is deciding that it's all right to base a relationship on shelter.

Being poor is knowing you really shouldn't spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.

Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.

Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so.

Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away.

Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.

Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.

Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.

Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.

I know firsthand about a lot of those.It's amazing how much you appreciate the little things after you escape poverty.It's terrible how often these people are made to feel ashamed because they are struggling!

I'm actually wiping away tears as I read this. I keep seeing those images out of New Orleans.

I agree with eddiecat. My family was poor growing up. We didn't go without food but we didn't have a lot. Now that I am an adult I find myself still hoarding things. It is hard to break that cycle. I have more cans of food in my pantry than I will ever eat. The other day I noticed the code date on the bottle of chocolate milk was out. I can't ever remember being able to throw away chocolate milk. When we got chocolate milk as kids it was a treat and we divided it up and drank it at one sitting. There were no "left-overs" to go bad. When I discuss our poor childhood with my siblings they too remember the sting of being without. Children at school can be very vicious to someone that is not wearing the "right" clothing or shoes.

I am so thankful for everything I am able to buy now. I am very thankful for being able to give away some of those canned foods out of my pantry and I am very thankful to be able to donate money to the Redcross in this time of need.

Like others here, I too was raised knowing the meaning of the words dirt poor. If it were not for the generosity of others when I was young, I don't know how we would have made it. I was raised by my Mother only, as my folks were divorced from early on, and my Mom often worked 2-3 jobs just to raise us, shelter us and feed us. She worked so hard. So I can relate to so much of this post.

I turn off lights when I leave a room. When I go to a meeting or to lunch, I turn the light off in my office. I suspect my coworkers find this a little odd. There are a few other things I do as habit from not growing up wealthy.

Millerbeach, I know a lot about those things from firsthand experience, too. Growing up in Gary was NOT the same as growing up in Highland. But nobody in my family or neighborhood turned to crime; we all worked hard to improve ourselves and generally did. Now, we still practice many of those habits of frugality, not because they were once necessary, but because they are simply sensible things to do.

While I was growing up my Father was in the Army. We did not have many of the “extra’s’; but then no one around us did either. We always had decent, if old and battered, housing; clean clothes, and food on the table. I know my mother budgeted, clipped coupons, and scraped hard to make those things happen. But it is amazing how many of the above I can identify with my childhood. The Army did not pay as well in those days when they could draft anyone they needed.

We never felt poor. We actually thought of ourselves as lucky because previous generations, like my grandparents, had had such a difficult time during things like the Great Depression.

God, how far we have come. How far I have come; for I am truly grateful to have been able to be born, raised, and educated in the greatest country on earth. A nation where literally anything is possible. Where even a gay kid from the deep south can make it out.

Yet I still see incredible, real, systemic, poverty in so many places; especially with children. It seems incredible to me that in the greatest country on earth that there are still children who go hungry every morning when they wake up, go to schools with one 30 year old textbook for every two kids, then go home to empty apartments, and to bed still feeling hungry.

It seems incredible to me that a disaster like N Orleans should have been allowed to occur because of long term negligence on the behalf of politicians, political cronyism, and a disregard for science and engineering.

Still, I am overseas at the moment, and just came from Croatia. There and in Africa I have seen true poverty. Children with distended bellies, worn dirty rags for clothing, no shoes, few schools, fewer health clinics and doctors, and fewer still people who seem to care.

Every time a politician wants to take one more dollar from poverty and education programs and give tax breaks to major international corporations I want to strangle him.

Every time some politician decries overseas aid and international cooperation to score a couple more points with pampered upper class voters, I want to shake them by the scruff of the neck, and drop them into Bosnia or Croatia, a Louisiana dirt farm or a West Texas hard scrabble ranch for a month (without their cell phones and toys).

Every time some stupid politician tries to win a few more votes by pitting ‘us’ against ‘them’ I want to scream ‘They are US’.

R

Well said Rob. I agree with you 100%.

I grew up getting by. My experience with poverty - not just not having as cute clothes as other girls but not knowing how I was going to pay the rent - came later in life.
I know what it feels like to feel useless because I can't get a job. Lying to get any minimum wage job. Begging relatives to cover the rent. Sleeping on other people's couches.
I have for the first time a decent income, but not sure because the company where I work is new and not stable. And I know that being a person with a disability means I can so easily be kicked out the door if they decide I'm a nuisance. (law or no law)
I've gotten free groceries. I remember when they were giving out free cheese. I stood in line for a block of awful American cheese. You would not believe what I thought of to cook with it. And I was cursed out by a man who said that a young peson must be a lazy pig and a whore to need free food.
But habits die hard. I mean, my oven mitt had a hole in it and when I went to buy a new one I didn't because it was $6 and I figured I could find a $4 one elsewhere. Hard to get it through my head that $2 is not going to make or break me anymore. I still wear my sneakers until they have holes in them. I am still using a TV so old it's not even cable ready because it still works and I can't see replacing anything that is functional.
When I hear people, including on this board, bash the hurricane survivors for "wanting a handout" while saying nothing about taz breaks for billionaires, overseas tax shelter for businesses, no bid contracts and the latest $1 billion missing in Iraq, I want to PUKE!

I am the first one to admit that I didn't grow up poor. In fact, being the youngest, and the only boy, by the time I was born, my parents were actually very comfortable.

My parents both grew up dirt poor. Both were teenagers at the start of the depression, and had to support their families. My father was taken out of school at 12 to run the farm, as my grandfather was a drunk. He went back at 15, left again at 16, went back at 17 and completed 3 years in 18 months, left home, and never looked back. He ended up with 2 PHD's in genetics and chemistry.

My mother was raised in Northern England, to a poor coal mining family. My grandfather was on strike from 1926 - 1932, so my mother was taken out of school 3 days before her A levels to go to work. My mother remembered her only daily meal being Bread and Bovril at the miners hall.

Reading articles like that make me realize how lucky I was, and am.

Here in Canada, about 35 years ago, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau spoke about he vision of a "just" society. Where people actually look out for one and other.

What you wrote should never be. Unfortunately, it is.

millerbeach - thanks for starting this conversation.

And thank you to the other posters for sharing their stories.

I was completely shocked by the poverty situation in New Orleans after the Hurricaine. My instinct was to turn off the TV so I wouldn't have to be confronted. Instead, I spent several hours one night watching CNN and the live feed from the Evacuation sites. I've learned a lot; mostly that not much has changed in this country in the last 40 years.

Call me a bleeding heart...but it's sad.

Well that makes two of us bleeders, Mdphl. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, either. Our hearts are in the right place my friend.

I'll add my thanks to millerbeach for starting this thread. Many of those items were very familiar to me as I was growing up. I recall many nights our dinner was oatmeal and toast because that's all Mom could give us. Feeding four kids, being divorced - it was not easy, even back in the 1950s.

quote from mdphl:

...Call me a bleeding heart...but it's sad.

I would call you a bleeding heart human. And thank God we have people like you & me around. Otherwise, this country would be filled w/ cold-hearted idiots. And thanks, too, millerbeach for this thread. I also IDed w/ many things you mentioned. But I thank God now for what I have materially speaking. Plus my health, sanity & those I love around me.

[ September 20, 2005, 05:25 PM: Message edited by: SCTrojan ]

Great Topic !

I grew up with abundance. It wasn't until the last couple of years that I became poor. And how I appreciate what I've had and what I do not have now. But I'm really not poor, just broke. Workin' my way back.

Again, thanks for the topic!

T

Being poor is not being able to afford time off to take advantage of MillerBeache's free condoms and lube wink

Being poor is not being able to afford the bus. Being poor is having to work for Billy Graham for $5 an hour. Spiritually poor?

Being poor is having to file a class action lawsuit against the police to get them to protect and serve. The police retaliate by intimidating your free lawyer 24 hours a day.

Being poor is getting beat up for riding your bike on the sidewalk by the police on the way too the ER.

Being poor is seeing the guy from Americas Most Wanted parading around New Orleans with armed guards. I guess they didn't want starving folks messing up the photo shoot. There is a duty to the TV viewers at home.

Being poor is having to join the military to pay for school and for a job.

Being poor is buying your clothes by the pound at a thrift store.

Being poor is stealing toilet paper from public restrooms by stuffing it in your pants.

Being poor is having to use a permanent marker for a cardboard sign rather than huffing it under a plastic shopping bag.

Being poor is quitting drinking because your life sucks too much for alcohol in plastic bottles to provide an escape.

I too grew up with abundance, probably too much. I was poor when I started out on my own after College. That period after college makes me appreciate what I have now.

I grew up in a very mixed environment. My mother's family was tremendously wealthy, while my fathers family had lost everything in WWII. So everything that my father and grandmother had came from hard work and constantly attempting to get their lives back. When my parents married, they refused all help from maternal grandparents, false pride as my father calls it now, as my sister's husband is refusing all help from my parents right now.

We grew up not wanting, just not having. Having a mother that is a teacher, we were never without books, mainly due to weekly trips to the public library. We had a few toys, but we grew up in a very catholic neighborhood, so we were the excpetion on the street with only 2 kids. The McHugh's down the street had 17 and the Mullens behind us had 22, there were families on the block with 13, 9, 8, four families of 5 kids , and tons of 3 and 4's, so there were pretty much gangs of toys everywhere. So someone had the thing that you wanted and at least got to try it out. But we spent the predominance of our time at the local playground or playing the park down the block.

I think part of what made me become a non greedy person was knowing that no matter what you have it can all be taken away in a minute, like what happened to my fathers family. They are still fighting the German and Russian governments to get their land and factories back, but war reparations are not given to people who are citizens of the United States in general.

I remember growning so quickly that my mother had to do the thrift store thing, she also used to make us our clothes. I wanted jams so badly (dating myself to the early 80's) but they were like 25 bucks a pair, so she took me to a fabric store let me pick out fabric, and made them for me by making a pattern. She did however educate us about clothes enough to tell all of us to buy the best when we can afford it, because they last forever, and she was right.

Just by looking however you would never know we were poor, I always respect people and think that no matter what hold your head up. We always did, eventually things changed for my parents, and no one knew that we survived on peanut butter and jelly on wonder white bread bought at the Wonder outlet store because it was day old.

We led a very odd existence as kids, public schools, just enough money to get by, but come summer time, we lived in a huge house on the beach, in what was always a very exclusive island, we wintered at the grandparents place in Key West for a week every year, and skiied at the mountain house on Lake Sunnapee in New Hampshire. So as young kids we didn't get it. We didn't understand that there was no real money and to a certain extent my mother pushed my father hard when she was not working and raising us kids. While not greedy, we just didn't understand that we were not part of that world, I mean I was wearing shoes from Salvation Army, and taking lessons with a golf pro at my grandparents country club at the age of 6. Talk about confusion.

My father worked 2 and three jobs at a time, and busted his ass. Eventually at around the same time, my mother went back to teaching, and my father got a great job as a toolmaker. He still worked a lot of hours, but double time on weekends at 25 bucks an hour, so would I. By this point in time I had been working for about 2 years, and it really instilled in me that if I wanted something I had to go do it myself. And I have done that now my whole life. I still periodically struggle, but I still do work 2 full time jobs just so I have that cushion. That is my biggest fear and the one thing that I can't stop. I don't hoard food, I am a bit thrifty (OK I refuse to pay full price for ANYTHING) but I don't know how to not work. My father is the same way. He retired so what does he do, but go out and get another job, and then he starts his own manufacturing company. 70 years old and he finally goes out on his own. But at least I know I don't have to worry about my parents being poor as they age. That personally is my biggest fear and my heart breaks every time I see a little old lady that I know just has nothing.

I never make fun of people based on what they look like, because I understand their situation (OK chunky to fat girls dressed in those belly shirts and low rise jeans..... but they have brought it upon themselves) and never try to put people in situations where they are uncomfortable with things involving money. I mean even this year alone I almost lost EVERYTHING. I was so broke I was going to surrender my truck, I hadn't made a student loan payment or utility payment in months, and was attempting make a living working only 20 hours a week for 10 bucks an hour. I have gone the full circuit of up and down over the years. Things have changed dramatically for me in the past six months, and hell I was the kid that everyone always thought was going to take over the world. I still just might.....

But I was never afraid to take myself out of a situation and make a change. So I hope that some of these people in New Orleans can make that change and break their cycle somewhere else. My biggest defeats always came with me staying somewhere because of considering it home, and refusing to move on when the time arose, and then becoming stuck there, and needing to leave, but lacking the ability to do so.

There are some very interesting stories here. We grew up not having a lot. My Dad was never very good with money and he and my Mom worked in a factory. We always had food and plenty of it. We and our extended family always had gardens so we canned/froze tons of fresh vegetables every year and basically just had to buy meats and grains. I never realized we weren't well off until I got to Jr. High and some of the affluent areas were meshed with our elementary school crowd. I worked since I was 11 in various jobs and used that money to buy things I wanted. I paid my own way through college and worked while I was there. I always had some money to spend. My parents, when I was in the second half of my junior year, hit a very rough patch financially and declared bankruptcy. Basically, the factory where my Dad was a supervisor closed after 30 years on the job and he hit such a depression that he couldn't come out of it. So, from that point until right before I graduated, I was sending money home to my parents (that's a reversal, huh). I was very bitter about that until I was 30. Then, like an epiphany, I suddenly understood that it was nothing my Dad could control. He was simply unable to help himself. Now, my mother controls all of the money, they are doing pretty well, but I know that I will end up meeting the shortfall in my Mom's budget once my Dad passes and his Social Security goes away. But, it's your family and and regardless of what has happened in the past, you have to help your family, provided they are trying.

My partner's family is very well off. However, he had no idea they had money until he was a senior in high school. He knew they owned a business and his mother always had a nice car, they had a nice house, etc. His parents just never talked about money to their kids, nor did they really spend a lot. His parents (and his mother grew up VERY poor) are just down to earth, donate tons of money to church and many less fortunate. As a matter of fact, his father personally goes to under priviledged areas each week visiting for the church and on Sundays, he'll go pick up these kids and have anywhere from 2 to 7 sitting with he and his wife at church. They also make sure they have Christmas presents and necessities at Christmas time. So, the partner's childhood was and still is kind of Leave it to Beaver where he literally was able to be a child and not have to face the cold realities so many kids have to face. His older brother went to an expensive Baptist college and my partner went to Auburn. So, his dad was so used to shelling out the big bucks, my partner basically had the same "amount" and always tons of disposable cash at the ready. I often kid with him that his standard of living went way down once he graduated from college.

We're extremely blessed to have a comfortable lifestyle. We can't go out and buy anything we want, but we really never want for anything. He still is extravagant with his spending and I'm just oblivious to a lot of things and rarely think about spending money. We had some friends that broke up after 10 years (and they didn't share money) and the remaining partner (our friend originally) said that he had gifted in excess of $400,000 to his partner over those 10 years. My partner joked that if I had been our friend's bf, I'd still have all of it and more since I hoard money. Money can't make you happy but it can make your day to day life easier.

I think you are VERY COOL for helping out your parents.

I agree. Aubie just went up at least 10 notches in my view.

I'm going out on a limb here and I apologise in advance if I offend anybody, and no reflection on the people and the stories already shared, but specifically in relation to this piece of glurge:

Some of the biggest pennypinchers I could count amongst the top wealthiest.

And if you're wealthy, you don't get angry if your kids ask for the same crap?

That is not being poor, that is just having \"friends\" that you need to get rid of as soon as possible.

Maybe it's just being paranoid - either that or there's something already seriously wrong with your relationship with your sibling that means that you shouldn't be thinking on hitting on him/her anytime soon.

I'm sorry, but that's just bad housekeeping. And also, when have cockroaches been interested about the economic position of a particular home before they choose to infest.

Not really. I've found some great treasures from a stranger's trash including 4 of these great 60's black vinyl bubble chairs that would be worth quite a fair bit on the retro market today.

Perhaps, but it's also being black, being gay, being a Candian ( sorry - not funny I know, I should say being Australian) let's face it, it's being anything other than your Amercian WASP male, and even that is being judgmental on my part.

See above.

I could go on and I know, my responses are rather simplistic, but then it's a reflection of what are rather simplistic concepts that attempt to glorify what is a serious social issue. If you're into this type of glurge, look here.

[ October 06, 2005, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: Mixie ]

Well,Mixie,
You really don't know much about being poor!

Convince me why it is that just because you're poor, you would understand more why you would have as a "friend" a person who you know would steal $5 from you. Have I missed something here and I will only know the answer if "I'm poor" (in inverted commas because my economic position is neither here nor there because whether I'm rich or poor, I would not tolerate around me any person who I fear would steal from me)?

Please don't judge me because of my post, which is a reaction to the content of the very first post rather than to the sentiment behind it. I specifically said that my post is not meant by any means to be a reflection on any of the other posts or the people who have posted or, might I add, a comment on what it is like to be poor. My issue is with the overtly simplistic analysis of a set of unfortunate circumstances that a lot of people find themselves in and, most probably, who have had no control over what lead them into those set of circumstances in the first place. I also react because these types of glurges also attempt to create a standard of morality that denies any criticism, because god forbid if you dare to criticise.

[ October 06, 2005, 09:38 PM: Message edited by: Mixie ]

And please, please, Mr Eddiecat, and not meaning you any disrespect, but please don't set yourself up as the arbiter of moral standards and character.

[ October 06, 2005, 08:54 PM: Message edited by: Mixie ]

Hey Mixie, relax. I think you are way over-analyzing this "gluge" or whatever you call it. I am the original poster, but I did not write the article. It comforts me to know that you cannot relate to anything in the original posting. I hope you never have to experience poverty in your life. Poverty really, really sucks, and that was the point of the article.

As I am not poor now,nor wealthy,I can assure you that I do not consider myself the arbiter of moral standards.There is severe poverty all over the world and I am sure those examples used here are not nearly as bad as other countries' situations.The problem I had with your post is that it sounded very judgmental and somewhat arrogant.There are almost always extenuating circumstances to the plight of the poor.A little compassion can go a long way.

I thought about this thread this morning when I turned my bottle of shampoo upside down so I could get one or maybe 2 more hair washes out of it. I mean, I'm no longer desperately poor but the habits die hard. I cannot throw out (actually recycle) a bottle as long as there is anything left in it. Because there have been times when a bottle of shampoo was a serious expenditure.

I agree with you. When I have a bottle of shampoo that is almost empty, I add about an inch of water to it to make sure that I use it all up.

And old toothbrushes get recycled to clean grout or silver.

Dog biscuit containers (I have 2 LARGE dogs so the biscuit containers are about 2 gallon) get re-used for all sorts of things.

I learned it from my parents who grew up very very poor, and even though I can afford it, old habits die hard.

I think we all do.There is too much waste in this world already.

You see the above circumstances as 'glorifying' poverty? Only someone who had absolutely no experience with being poor could feel that real poverty was a good thing or in any way glorious.

All of the things you cite are true - but notice the difference between your citations and the original intent of the article: In most examples you cited there was CHOICE involved.

I am certain the original artical and the posters afterward were considering those WITHOUT CHOICE.

I am a terrible scrounge. When I am looking for a part for one of my car projects I will scrounge through acres of junk yards looking for the .99 part that will be what I need.

I do not need to do that any more. I am just as capable of calling up my parts broker and having him look for one, then charge me $200 - 500 when he delivers it to my door. If I so choose these days, I don't have to work on cars at all, I can call a dealer I know in AZ and tell him what make and model car I want in pristine show condition. He will deliver it to my doorstep for a price. Or I can order a new one, and have a 10 year warranty that guarantees I won't have to scrounge for a decade.

Those are my choices.

A young mother making minumum wage at McDonalds or Subway, who has no health insurance, gets a rent subsidy (If she qualifies on her exhorbitant income) and relys on food stamps to see her child fed, can not afford those options: those choices.

A young man with only a HS degree working two jobs (when he can find them in our society of 10 - 12% institutionalized unemployment) trying to pay his way through the local communitty college can not afford those choices; not when he has to decide between spending .50 cents on Ramen noodles or Mac n Cheese that day, or holding off in case he needs to put that extra .50 cents into his gas tank in order to get to work or school.

Money is all about CHOICE. IF you don't have it, then your choices are sharply curtailed, your life choices narrowed.

You are right in that poverty is a serious social issue.

Rob

Let me tell you what really sucks. Something like 45 million Americans live at or below the poverty line in this, supposedly the richest country on earth, now thanks to the idiot in the White House, probably the most debted country on earth!! :mad: And no sign of anything going to be done about it. Hell Congress just authorized another $50 Billion for Iraq today too. Nice. :mad:

[ October 07, 2005, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: puckman1 ]

But Paul Wolfowitz, now screwing up the World Bank, said that the Iraq War was going to cost only a few billion dollars and that the Iraqis, who "sit on a sea of oil," would be paying for it out of their own pockets, oh, by say 2004. Oops!

Thanks for the link Mixie. I hooked up some dendrites. Which is always more desireable than the usual mindless banter of bitchy size queens getting out the measuring stick. :cool:

I'm sorry, but you are setting yourself up as the arbiter of moral (and social) standards (admittedly unintentionally) by responding as you have done, and including your first response as follows:

How do you figure that I don't know anything about being poor? Because I have disagreed with a post that glorifies, and yes it does glorify, poverty? For all you know, I may be the product of the worst imaginable poverty ever, or I may be the wealthiest man on this planet. But because I don't agree with the content of the article (the content and not the sentiment), that does not mean I do not have compassion for those who are less fortunate than me. Your responses to my posts so far are the reasons why I take issue with the style of the article, because such \"articles\" do set themselves up as a measuring stick (thank you Eric G), and they deliver a nasty backhand if you don't measure up (or disagree).

And I agree with you Millerbeach. Yes, poverty really, really sucks, and I clearly see that as the sentiment behind the article, and as reflected in how I have sought to respond. I do not have an issue with the intent of the article. What I have an issue with is with the (unintentional(?)) standard that the article creates.

This is now moving off topic, and I apologise for having hijacked it so. While I could respond to other points raised, I won't. But please, do not misunderstand me because I can certainly appreciate the outcome of the original post, which has allowed people to share quite moving and inspirational histories which I am sure we all can either learn from or at least appreciate what we have done to find ourselves in the position that we are in today, where we (and I hope we all do or will have a chance to) have the luxury of being able to sit back and reflect about where we've come from, where we are today and what our hopes are for the future.

[ October 09, 2005, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: Mixie ]

"bicycle", "shredding singletrack", Now that I have got the cycling part of the post out of the way ...

I always find it amusing when folks get all bent out of shape. The force that tweeks their perfect world, in which they know everything, is their ignorance. Which is then compounded by the arrogance and conceit that they know and do not need to follow through on replacing their ignorance with knowledge.

I followed the link because I am a curious lad. I can now say that the original post contained some glurgeous glorifications, no doubt. I learned something knew the other day :cool:

I also found it amusing that someone in Melbourne has better reading comprehension in American English than most of the type-casting keyboard jocks waving American flags in my face all the time.

bicycle, bicycle, bicycle...

Now a poor story from frosty Minneapolis...

I don't know, other day at Home Depot, the cashier judged me queer, it was quite quaint, she amused my friend by age checking me for the spray paint.

So apparently the $150 Malden windblock REI jacket, $300 titanium glasses, $150 Rocky steel-toed boots and extremely clean-cut look could not make me look like the honest 36 year-old that I am. Spank me. Cuz I guess I will always be poor white trash

[ October 09, 2005, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: Erik G ]

Erik,
You truly are one of a kind.

So, Erik, you want a spanking? Have you been a bad, bad boy? Thank goodness I am no longer poor. Now I can afford all those fancy S&M whips and chains. So when can you come down to Miller beach? It's still warm if we go to the back dunes!

Oo-la-la!!!!!!

I know, I know, this thread is probably past its use by date and this is now flogging the proverbial dead horse, but I couldn't resist posting this link.

[ November 09, 2005, 06:57 PM: Message edited by: Mixie ]

Good! The link still works, and it looks as if this list is making its way through cyber-space. Good indeed.

I guess I'm always going to be poor even though I've made okay money over time. But I keep giving it all away! I feel as though I can always make more.

Once I realized the difference between wants and needs, it's amazing how litle I require. Don't get me wrong, I like nice things, but I spent a great deal of my life buying things that I realized didn't matter at all! And I wasn't as happy then.

I love to see a poor person smile and a rich one worry. Just kind of warms my heart.

Can I just say that I really,really like you!! wink

Dinger, it goes back to the old saying...do you have everything you want or do you want what you have? I found this out after a house fire in 1998. For once in my life, I wanted everything I had...there wasn't much, but boy, did I appreciate what little I had left.

Well, EddieCat, I like you too, Baby. And Millerbeach, well, as always, when you're good, you're so good, and when you're bad, I get all interested.

Dinger, I am much better at being bad than being good. That alone should send a shiver down your spine!

It made me feel tingly all over! wink wink

Aw, Eddiecat, you sure know how to say sweet things to a man!