The War on Poverty - Growing Up Poor

We hear a lot about helping the poor; the War on Poverty, helping those who are less fortunate than ourselves, making allowance for someone because he grew up poor. Well, I grew up poor and I can tell you about it. Don't misunderstand me, please. I didn't know I was poor. I didn't miss the things I didn't have and my parents did the best that they could for us; my sister, my brothers and I. I never had to go to bed hungry. I never had reason to doubt that my parents loved me. Our family was not the poorest of the poor, but we were still poor.

I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks; literally. There was a set of railroad tracks that we had to cross to get to school, or go to the doctor, or buy groceries. Those tracks separated us from just about everything that was something, except for church. We didn't have to cross the tracks to get to church. And we didn't have to cross the tracks to learn about neighborliness, or security, or love.

My father was born just before the Great Depression started, and just missed having to go serve in World War II, but our country had a place for him a few years later; he went to Korea instead. He always took a great deal of pride for having done so, but he seldom told us anything that happened while he was there. The life lessons that he learned by being a part of that generation served him well. That was what some people refer to as, the Generation of Plenty. There were plenty of jobs to go around and plenty of housing, schools and lots of many other things that people need. That didn't mean that all of that generation ended up being wealthy, but the wartime shortages were behind us. Industry was booming, housing was booming, and babies were booming, too.