Back in the beginning of time
Date: Fri, 05/13/2005 - 10:28
Back in the beginning of time
Without all the background and stuff my story wouldl not make any sense..
I iwll add post as time permits and relate my story in short chapters..
In the Beginning: when I started to Rememeber....
I grew up in two worlds.
My Mom was from Northern Maine, Very Rural and Poor. My Dad was from Miami Florida, a big city with plenty of oppertunities.
My Dad met my Mom while in the Coast Guard and Stationed in Sourth Portland Maine. They got married when he was 19 and she was jsut barely 17. I came around a few months later in 1960.
Fast forward to when I was around 7 & 8. I am now the Oldest of four kids. We were living in a Middle Class neighborhood in Miami Fl. Dad had Cars, Boats, a Nice House with a yard. If us kids needed things, all we had to do was ask and they would magically appear, and X-Mas was a STACKED tree barely fitting in our house...VERY Happy Times..
Dad liked to Drink..Mom hated drinkiong as she came from a abusive family and Hated Achocol of all types..this cause stress and agruments between them and me as the oldeset was very much aware of them.
Mom left Dad, we moved back to Maine crowed ina car for a LONG drive back north.
Landed and lived with relatives, no MOney, all our nice things gone, feeling resentments and wondering it was my fault Mom and dad didnt love each other anymore...
(excuse me..this is tearfully painful writing and if it gets sloppy chalk it up to that..:?)
We eventually moved into a Log Cabin in North Central Maine with my Grandmother and Uncle. One room Log Cabin very Small (Seemed like a Bigger place then..but whehn I last drove by it I couldnt believe we all lived in that small place)
Had a Large Wood stove, in the rafter area..was laid down planks to forma afloor and was kinda divided into Rooms of a sort for us to sleep in..the ladder was made from a Small Tree with branchs nailed to form the rungs to get up to it.
No Running Water, use a fresh spring fed well, Outhouse with a Privey Bucket for night duties if required and needed to be emptied each morning by who's duty it was for that day. LOTS of land and a river down back and LOADS of Woods. Berries all over the place, apple trees, a small garden. Heated our Bath water on that wood stove was heated, and went behind a divider to sit in a wash tub for bathing. Only electricity was a single buld in mioddle of cabin. Had a old karosine powered fridge we only used in summer as in winter we used the existing snow outside banked up. Food and Money was scarce....actually Uncle(s) did a lot of Illegal Hunting to keep us fed on a regular basis and produce from our gardens and Uncles/Aunts gardens that was either fresh and/or canned was used. Also fished a lot too. (one reason I love to Fish and Hunt so much comes from this time period). Still besides for missing Dad and sad over that..as kids was happy, plenty of space to play, fish, hunt, TONS of cousins to play with etc..
Fast Forward again..Mom and Dad make up..we move back to Fl. again nice neighborhood, dreams come true again..mom nad dad love each other again and we are happy still. But Mom and Dad still had that tension going etc..and now Dad started to get caught cheating..I have another Brother Born in FL from a relationship My Mom had back in Maine, but dad named him his Son anyways etc...bickering back and forth happens more, fighting over drinking and infidelity etc..I am now around 10.
Fast forward agian....mom leaves dad again..goes back to Maine, this time we dont move back to the country but stay in Portland, Maine (the Biggest City in Maine). We live on City and State assistance (think we did before but was too young to realize it). Went to churches also for food and cloths, felt like a outcast in school as my clotes were not the best nor in style :(
Bills went uppaid, I as the oldest helped Mom out when I culd, I had to help with my younger siblings, babysat etc..when mom was working/looking for work etc..
Bills went unpaid to make sure we could eat...moved a lot when we could no longer afford rent and was behind and got evicted sometime each year or more often..(this is the start of my True Debt story as I learned bad habits at this point).
I WIll stop here for now...some of these memories are painful and I need a break to get my memorieds in order and proceed later.
Jerry
Touching and very challenging
Jerry, I can see that path to debt free was not an easy event but a tough fight.
We are waiting for more on your fight with debts.
Vikas
Chaper two: growing up Poor.... We moved into a Large aprtmen
Chaper two: growing up Poor....
We moved into a Large aprtment when I was about 12/13...first Floor with like five bedrooms.
This was in the poor section of the city known as "Kennedy Park" Area..Public Housing division was just down the street.
On the corner was a small Neighborhood store where we bought a Lot of our stuff at, esp. as we did not own a car and walked/bussed/cabbed to most Big Shopping places...
We received some Child support from dad for Cash, received food stamps, city stamps, used our quotas of "public" assistance every month, and Mom also got a small amount of AFDC (what state iad was called then-Aid to Familys with Dependant Children I think). Got city vouchers to help get school cloths and shoes each year.
I also got "work" at the local nehborhood store as the own kinda liked me (and prob broke child labor laws too), by helping to clean, stock, etc...he would give me a small stipend at end of each nitght and allow me to take a few "goods" hoem too (is how I provided milk, bread, eggs and a few items that way) as well as always getting me a "treat" of candy/icecream etc..
I rememebr Mom Still always haveing utilities shut off and scrambling to get back on, food still ran low, and mom was seeing another guy too also...
Fast Forward...Mom gives us another little sister, I am now the oldest of 7 Kids....her father is married and a "Part" time provider..but is a weird situation. He helped with some needed stuff..but not a whole lot. We still continually fought to survive finicially.
Always juggling and robbing peter to pay paul. Also, living in the area I was in now was not easy...fights, rowdy behaviors, everyone I knew was poor too..Bills seemed like a last thing to pay by everyones parents I knew.
Beer & Drugs & Gigarettes (yes I was aware of this stuff even back then) seemed what $$$ was spent on by everyones parents but a few that I knew first before regualr expenses were paid...(Mom didnt drink nor do drugs but did smoke).
Mom did good and did her best to "Keep" us from making bad decisions in regards to drugs and stuff...she was also working now part time at a Nursing Home. Not a lot of Money but some. I stayed home after school to help keep house, cook, change diapers(Yes I am a guy who knows how to change Cloth diapers still). I was also the "Strong" boy to carry two tons of laundry (or it seemed) up the Hill and back down the otherside to the laundry mat,,, stay bored there and wash/dry and carry back for mom to put away. Sometime I feel I lost part of my childhood here as I was like a "surrogate-Dad" to my Borthers and sisters. Still over all conception of this time was we were dirt poor and always in debt.
Was normal to not pay bills or pay them on time. Open Phone accounts multiple times in different names so we could keep phone service...not good lessons for a young, impresionable and smart young boy.
Fast forward to Jr. Highschool era....
This will again be covered in another segment as I take a break...
Jerry
:( thanks for sharing your story this far. Reading it makes me s
:( thanks for sharing your story this far. Reading it makes me sad :(
but we all went through it at some point or the other in some way or the other and we are better for it !!
i wish to come back to read more :arrow:
Hi Jerry, This time, I read your whole post updated till now
Hi Jerry,
This time, I read your whole post updated till now and feel so sad when I put that in picture it's sad that you have actually gone through it. Falling short of words!!!
Roxette
RE:
Hi Jerry,
It touches my heart deeply to learn about your plight during the precious childhood days. However yours were an eventful life which seems like a novel or a sad fairy tale. Kudos to you that you have won over your situation. :(
Lots of water must have passed under the bridge. Waiting to know eagerly what happened with you next. Remember you always have my shoulders to bank on, if you need someone.:)
Regards,
Faithful buddy
Hi,
Your story is very sad.It touched my heart when reading it .I feel your pain.And wish you the Best Of Luck
jerry looking forward to you to finish your story you always thi
jerry looking forward to you to finish your story you always think you grew up poorly or have it so bad till you really see your not alone listening to you makes me see i grew up well just not having to be juggling around and having a stable home where i grew up (meaning not moving alot) didn't have alot at all i always felt poor only because we didn't have everything to keep up with the joneses. now that seems so irrelevent seeing what alot of children are going through,i now realize i was lucky what i did have is my family together and that is the most important thing to me now so i hope things in the long run turned out well for you and i'm sure all that you have been through made you a very strong person
It seems you had to be the "DAD" most of the time. Looking forwa
It seems you had to be the "DAD" most of the time. Looking forward to hear the end of the story.
