2001-07-13 - 9:38 a.m.

a long look back

I feel like a kid again. Found some graham crackers in the cupboard and some leftover frosting and make some cookies. The only kind we had when I was a kid. The oven in the trailer didn't work so powdered sugar and water spread on graham crackers were a great treat. I always knew we were poor, but didn't realize how poor until I was grown.. trailer trash is what we were.

Daddy's drinking and Mamma's mental instability led to a very sparse life. When Mamma got older and was better mentally, she always worked in the potatoes. Then she had money to live a more conventional life, even in a little trailer.

Sis had a little better life when she was a teen. Poor doesn't have to end up in trailer trash lives. We have been poor in our marriage, but it has been a genteel poverty. The Five Little Peppers were much poorer than I was so I didn't feel that deprived. It was good not to be too involved socially so I didn't have a lot to contrast my life with. Living in rural Washington was also a benefit. Inner city living or Deep South poverty may have been a lot worse.

There were no yard sales, and very few Youth Ranch, Salvation Army or DI stores, so we did without. New clothes at school start after Mamma had picked grapes, and a new outfit and sandals at Easter were the cycle of each year. If feet grew too big or sandals fell apart at inappropriate times, we managed until the time came for the next turn of the cycle.

My only asset was my mind, and I took great pride in reading better than every other student in my early years and getting top grades in older years. I didn't realize how little anyone cared that I read alot back then. It was important to me, and I did alot of it. The Carnegie Public Library system and Bookmobile program along with summer reading programs probably enriched my life in ways I never dreamed.

EE's devotional

newAutumn Leaves

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