I Never Knew 1707

Way back when I was in grade school, we were learning to write in cursive. The teacher wanted us to all have a Paper-Mate ballpoint pen so it would be good for us to use when learning to write. I came home and told my parents we needed that pen and it cost $1. They had a fit, “A dollar?”

Later in high school, we had to buy text books and the bookstore at the high school sold them. Along with the books they also sold book covers. They were a whopping 25 cents each, so I was allowed to buy two of them and the rest of my books had to be covered with brown paper bags from the grocery store cut up and taped to fit on the books.

I was very pliable with all of this, though I did have to beg my father for bus fare to get to high school and that never set well with me because the school I wanted to go to was within walking distance, while the one I went to was two different public busses away. All of that never really made me think about family finances.

Then one sunny day 50 some years later I found some old family pictures which are shown below. This picture is my youngest brother (now deceased) and middle sister in 1960 on our front porch steps. You can see how sad those steps looked.

This next picture below is the same two with my oldest sister, barefoot. You can see the kitchen was old and worn and the high chairs are worn and they are in rag-tag clothes. It took me nearly 63 years before I ever realized how poor we were. I guess everyone in the neighborhood was pretty much in the same boat, so I never realized how bad things were. Now I understand why my asking for that $1 ballpoint pen was such a big deal. As I write this now I see why I once said as soon as I could I was going to move out on my own. I wanted to join the navy when I was just out of highschool but I was just 17 in June of that year. My parents would not sign my enlistment papers, so I had to wait a month and a half until I was 18. I did sign up and left home and while I often visited, I never lived at home again. I had always loved my parents and they did a lot for me growing up, but once I could I wanted to be on my own and I did just that.

Every time I look at these pictures it astounds me how poor we were. I suppose had I not joined the navy I would never have wanted to better myself.