We Were Poor

 Touching on a subject I've hinted at and oftentimes, outright said how poor we were growing up.  And this is a topic that may make a few people uncomfortable.  I know I never mention the topic of money with anybody because that's a personal matter.  And when people hear about the struggles you faced growing up, it can make people look at you differently, treat you differently.  But this is what I was born into.  

I've said how we were poor growing up but a lot of people say the same, only they say it because maybe they had to wait for a birthday or holiday to get something special, something out of the ordinary.  That was us.  But even the special or out of the ordinary was something that just was a regular thing for many people.  One year for Christmas, our parents had us come up with a "wish list."  We'd write down on little bits of paper different things we wanted.  They were going to take our wishes, put them into a hat and draw out one of them to get us that for Christmas.  I wrote down different roleplaying games and scenario books I wanted, maybe some cartridges for the Atari and, at mom's insistence, some clothes just to round out the list.  So I threw in a couple of Levi's 501s, just because.  What are the odds that mom and dad drew the Levi's rather than the other things I really wanted?  And that was my Christmas gift.  Two pairs of jeans.  And I should have been grateful.  But when you're a kid, you don't usually think in those terms.  

As I drive through these OC cities now as an adult, I drive past certain places and remember not only what used to be there when we first lived here but, I remember the living situations we were in at the time that necessitated why we visited in the first place.  There's a Goodwill store in Santa Ana that I drive past a few times on the corner of Fairview and 5th.  It's a big facility.  I think their business offices are in that location now as well as a shop.  But I remember it when my family would visit it during the 1970s.  In addition to the storefront, where all the "better" merchandise was sold from, there was an outdoor fenced in lot with the hardware, tools, toys, that maybe weren't the best quality.  That's where we shopped for the most part.  Most of my first toys came from that lot.  A few plastic "action" figures of Hulk and Thor.  Literally just a hunk of plastic molded into those characters.  My first board games came from that lot as well.  An incomplete Mouse Trap board game was one.  No rules, no understanding of what the gameplay was supposed to be like.  My cousins and I just rolled the dice, moved the plastic mice around the gameboard and assembled the mouse trap as best we could despite the missing pieces.  We also got a Monopoly type of game from that lot.  I can only assume it was Monopoly because the board layout was what we thought the game was but it wasn't in English.  And it wasn't in Spanish.  That one ended up going with us on a trip to Mexico in the late 70s and we left it with family there.  
One could argue that it was this type of childhood that has pushed me to buy and collect all the toys I didn't have, couldn't afford to get back then.  I suppose there's something to that.  I know my early years on eBay were all about finding Shogun Warriors that I never had as a kid.  The 24" versions.  Dad did buy us, my brother and I, a couple of the 6" die-cast versions from Zody's eventually.  I got Poseidon and Carlos got Raider.  Then several months later, I had saved up (ALMOST) enough money to buy myself a Raider plastic model kit.  Mom chipped in whatever I was short.  Of course, at the time I was too young and inexperienced to build a model kit that wasn't a snap-tite.  Which it wasn't.  

I think of being a passholder at Disneyland, or at least was until they canceled the program for the time being.  And how, as a child, Disneyland was *MAYBE* a once-a-year thing.  Mom and dad would save up like crazy for the year so that when our birthdays would come around, they could take us to the Happiest Place on Earth.  Never mind that mom packed sandwiches for our lunches because there's no way we could afford to eat there, too.  Often times, mom and dad would try to talk me into asking for a bike for my birthday instead of our annual Disneyland trip.  And every year, I would rather have gone to the park than have that bike.  The park was something I could enjoy with my brother and sister, the bike was just going to be something for me.  I didn't want that.  

I think of school lunches and how I had a lunch card because we couldn't afford them otherwise.  It didn't occur to me then what it was or why I was using a card when other kids had pocket money.  It was just another thing I did until maybe 4th grade when I didn't want to eat the school lunches anymore anyway.  Those pizzas were disgusting.  Most of the food come to think of it, although the Sloppy Joes, there was just something about them that the Manwich mixes never equated to.  I wouldn't eat another school lunch until middle school, bringing whatever sandwiches mom would make.  Most often it was just bologna and mayo on white bread, sometimes with a slice of cheese, which I always plucked out.  I don't know what I never cared for sliced cheese as a child.  Oh, and usually a little baggie of Cheetos or Doritos, which I'd often add to the sandwich for crunch.  What, don't roll your eyes at me, you know you tried it at least once as a kid.  But as I was saying, I stopped buying school lunches for the remainder of grade school and wouldn't eat cafeteria food again until middle school.  And that was only because I was getting really hungry, being a growing boy and not wanting to bring a sack lunch on my bike.

As I drive past where we used to live, I think about what it was like, living not only in a multi-generational home but that we were living in a converted garage.  Oh, it wasn't legally converted, it was just a garage that dad put up some walls and a drop ceiling.  Supplies he took from his job at Ace Awning, the patio enclosures.  After caulking the garage door to seal it as best he could from the draft.  Not that Orange County is ever THAT cold but a family of 4 living in what was a 2-car garage wasn't as comfortable as it sounds.  We had cockroaches, we had mice, we eventually had 5 of us when my sister was born in '78.  Mom and dad in a 'bedroom' that was barely bigger than their full size bed, my brother and I in a shared room next to that and then my sister on her own bed out in what we called the living room.  And the only thing that defined these as rooms were the thin particle board walls that sandwiched a thin cardboard honeycomb for any sort of rigidity.  We didn't have doors, just openings in the walls between rooms.  The living room was big enough for my sister's twin size bed, a couch and TV.  Our shared closet was a 3' x 8' space dad made from partitioning the living room and hanging up a curtain in the opening.  Just thinking about it, I can't even imagine how we did it.  I'm sure if I were to look at it now, I would be appalled at the squalor.  But we were kids, we literally didn't know any better.  I didn't get to sleep in a proper bedroom, four actual walls, a ceiling and a real door, until Dad finally bought a house in Riverside when I was 14.  The summer after Freshman year.  

Dad didn't make much money but he had plenty of opportunities.  He just passed them up a LOT out of devotion to his family.  When I say his family, I don't mean us.  I mean his brothers and sisters and mother.  Dad being the oldest son, he took his duties above and beyond trying to make sure his mom and younger siblings were taken care of, to the point where he was negatively affecting the lives of his wife and kids.  I remember mom telling me years later that her brother had offered dad help by getting him a job that paid better and would help him secure a home for us.  Dad passed on it because he didn't want to abandon his mom.  Which struck me as odd since grandma had 8 other kids who could have helped.  But dad had this outsized sense of duty.  

I think back to those days and I just don't see how mom and dad did it.  Raising 3 kids, putting a roof over our heads and food on the table... and mind you, even food was sometimes a bit of a luxury when at breakfast one morning, I asked if there was any bacon to go with my eggs.  No, we don't have any, didn't buy it, couldn't afford it.  They were barely making ends meet on their combined salaries.  I feel almost guilty about how much money I waste on things now, knowing how hard times were for us growing up.  And I spend so much damn money on dust collectors, tchotchkes, random collections of things.  But I guess that's my way of overcompensating for not having much of anything when I was a kid.  I mean, we were poor.