[FourOfSwords]

http://www.backwoodshome.com/forum/yabb ... 1163275542
I took the liberty of posting this thread I lifted from another forum I visit. It is well worth reading.
It is my wish, that every poster on this forum read this thread, then take some time to ponder it.
A.

[crossthread]

About 3/4ths of those "quotes" apply too me and my 2 daughters..

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')eing poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old.

[Aaron]

Should be "Being poor, in America, is..." though.

These folks think they are poor because of where they live...

Reminds me of that scene in Crocodile Dundee where he whips out his knife on the mugger.

"That ain't a knife... this is a knife".

Being actually poor is slowly dieing from starvation in a pool of your own urine, sitting in a gutter.

10 million or so folks suffered that rather undignified fate last year alone.

So it's a very relative judgement call... this poverty thing.

[FourOfSwords]

Being actually poor is slowly dieing from starvation in a pool of your own urine, sitting in a gutter.

10 million or so folks suffered that rather undignified fate last year alone.

So it's a very relative judgement call... this poverty thing.

Absolutely. All things are indeed relative.
A.

[PrairieMule]

Backwoods home magazine in a excellent source of info. Monthly articles from Jackie Clay and Ayoob are part of my personal library.

[I_Like_Plants]

It's a good thread they have going though.

Being poor is being undersize/underweight for age so people think you're a few years younger than you really are.

Being poor means the neighbors (poor too but not as poor as you!) never throw anything out worth taking, like an old lamp. And car? What car?

Being poor in a poor neighborhood, the cashier at the market will NEVER spot you a dime, or a penny. The practice was utterly unknown. If I was a penny short, I had to go home and get it, or look and see if I could find one in the streeet.

Which brings me to, noticing that less-poor kids at school would drop stuff like pencils and sometimes even pens, so if I kept my eyes down it served dual-purposes: Not only less likely to get the shit beat out of me but also I'd have a pencil or pen. Once I found a nickel!

Being poor is not being able to hold out for the whole school lunch because you'd faint by then, so getting the "mini-lunch" at 10AM that was much smaller. Sure, you'd not faint, but overall you'd miss out on lots of needed calories and vitamins.

"Alma" on that forum sounds like she's been through the 1930s Depression, I went through the 1970s recession, and that was pretty bad too, at least where I was.

Of course we're heading for a Depression worse than the 1930s one....

[mercurygirl]

I like BackwoodsHome too. That is a great thread.
I like the positive comments, like "a good family is like a stone wall at your back".

Poverty is relative, as others noted. I remember getting teased for only having two pairs of pants to wear to school and my sister and I shared a beat-up bicycle. My dad who was a little boy in the Depression probably saw nothing wrong with it. However, we did always have good food to eat and a nice place to grow up. We ran wild in the woods and around the lake. I think it was good for us.
The best things in life aren't things.

[NEOPO]

You mean a GED doesnt make a difference?? well damn.....

[oowolf]

Being poor means the cops look upon you as fodder for the "law enforcement growth industry".

[cynicalheretic]

A few of those things applied to my childhood.

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mercurygirl', 'T')he best things in life aren't things.

[oowolf]

Being poor means the cops look upon you as fodder for the "law enforcement growth industry".

[PrairieMule]

I love hearing these old depression stories.

My father's father graduated second in his class at Princeton University with a degree in Geology in 1932. For a man of his distinguished academic accolade he ended up comming back to Oklahoma to apply himself by digging ditches for the CCC. It wasn't until the war broke out he got back on his feet becoming artillery captain for the Army at Ft.Sill. When the war was over, he started his own oil company and wildcatted until the 70's.

[128shot]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', 'I') love hearing these old depression stories.

My father's father graduated second in his class at Princeton University with a degree in Geology in 1932. For a man of his distinguished academic accolade he ended up comming back to Oklahoma to apply himself by digging ditches for the CCC. It wasn't until the war broke out he got back on his feet becoming artillery captain for the Army at Ft.Sill. When the war was over, he started his own oil company and wildcatted until the 70's.

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('128shot', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', 'I') love hearing these old depression stories.

My father's father graduated second in his class at Princeton University with a degree in Geology in 1932. For a man of his distinguished academic accolade he ended up comming back to Oklahoma to apply himself by digging ditches for the CCC. It wasn't until the war broke out he got back on his feet becoming artillery captain for the Army at Ft.Sill. When the war was over, he started his own oil company and wildcatted until the 70's.

[JustWatch]

A few quotes from Benjamin Franklin-

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.

It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.

He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.


I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', 'Y')ou mean a GED doesnt make a difference?? well damn.....

[kam300en]

The tightwads shall inherit the earth. Even a "poor" man who watches his pennies and doesn't buy into consumerism and useless luxuries, can die a relatively rich man. This is how poor people become rich, and why some rich people become poor again. If you can't manage you money (control yourself), you will be poor. Even alot of the upper middle class (or even upper class) in America are a few weeks away from being poor, that is, when the housing crash and the new depression gets them. Their endless obsession with petty consumerism and "keeping up with the jones'" will be their undoing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetty_Green

If only the world were able to manage it's resources the way Hetty Green managed her money, we wouldn't have to worry about peak oil.

[threadbear]

I found the responses to the post on that thread, almost uniformly moronic. There are several different gradations of poverty--the hallmark card depiction of the family struggling, but surviving because they have eachother, is just one-- sitting in your own urine is another. To be poor in the US, presently, is to be judged and found wanting, or whining. I think the poverty poster is clearly trying to explain being poor is a dispiriting exercise in a highly competetive, Capitalist culture.