Growing up poor in a housing project

Joe,

A uniquely American institution, I'm sure you'll agree, is BRAGGING to folks about how poor your family was when you grew up. "What? You call that POOR? That ain't SHIT! Lemme tell you how poor WE were, junior ... Yevver heard of a mayonnaise sandwich? Yabbut, how about with only one piece of bread?"

Now, you know how often your parents flat-out LIED to you (I think it's part of what they call Parental Duty), but I can't tell you how many times my mother told me that when she was a kid, a loaf of bread only cost a nickel, except nobody had a nickel.

I guess this pride in former poverty comes from living in a country where everyone has the opportunity (and expectation) to start out poor and end up driving an SUV and having a two-car garage, a crabgrass problem and a $300,000 mortgage. Well, at least that's the way it used to be, until someone took the concept of the "middle class" out in the back yard and shot the shit out of it.

OK, I was born black, so I've got twenty points on you right at the starting line (smile). Our family was definitely not the Huxtables. A sort of reverse "Manifest Destiny," if you will. Now, believe me, I'm hardly one to wail and moan about how hard black folks (most of them single mothers) have it in this country, which is certainly an undeniable fact. Lord knows there are plenty of counter-examples, but by any measure, I've done damn well (admittedly because of some dumb luck and the fact that my mom didn't raise any stupid, lazy motherfuckers), and I'm a living testament to "if you stop blaming other folks, wallowing in self-pity, have a few IQ points and a little gumption, you too can live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood and be in massive debt, just like white people."

I laughingly tell people that I grew up "housing-project poor." My formative years (2 til 10) were spent in one of those ubiquitous post-war "housing projects" in Seattle in the Fifties. We were poor, but as a kid, I had the blessing of not knowing that we were poor. Can't tell you how thrilled I was to watch B-52 Stratofortresses roaring overhead from the Boeing plant on Marginal Way (yes, that was the actual name of the road where the Boeing plant was). My country can kick your country's ass any day, pal. Somehow, that even sticks on little kids.

We blessedly didn't get a TV set until I was nine years old (1959), so I grew up reading those arcane things known as "books," and listening to Bob Hope, Fibber McGee, Amos and Andy, and the Lone Ranger on radio. My mom bought ninety-nine-cent volumes of the Funk and Wagnall's encyclopedia, one volume per week, and I read Golden Books that she also bought at the Safeway. Another blessing was that I grew up with and went to school with and played with other poor kids who happened to be of all colors.

Back then (in Seattle at least), housing projects weren't strictly the domain of poor BLACK people, we were all just POOR people. Somehow, it didn't carry the stigma then that it does now. There was always food on the table, toys all over the floor, great Fifties jazz on the hi-fi, a 1950 Studebaker that my stepfather bought for $100, and we went to the beach, the park, and basically had a good-ass time. If you'd asked me then, I would've said "Poor? What's that? Oh, you must mean those people over in China and Korea, and eastern Europe."

Keith

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OK, Keith.

That's enough out of you. I'm supposed to be the writer around here. :-)

Seriously ole buddy, that was beautiful, especially the last two graphs. I called my wife in and read it aloud to her.

I'm touched, man. Touched.

Joe