Poor But Didn't Know It.

I consider it my great fortune to have grown up in small town America.  My folks decided I should not go to school in the big city of Savannah, so we moved to their small hometown where I started my first grade of school at the age of six, learning to read from my blue “Dick and Jane” reading book and to scrawl my name in big letters in my first grade writing tablet.

I remember my teacher, Miss Thompson, was very nice, wore glasses on her nose, and had a few whiskers on her chin.  I was careful to be good.  Her method of discipline was paddling the offender in the palm of the hand with the Coca Cola ruler that we all were given at the beginning of the year.     The lunch room was a separate wooden building where we could eat lunch for a dime.  There was a “little store” that sold candy bars for 5 cents and pencils and paper.  Chewing gum was not allowed in school.   Bazooka bubble gum came along a few years later and it was treasured like gold so you did not dare chance trying it at school! 

When I was about eight years old, we moved into the house with my Uncle Aubrey.  I slept in the same bedroom with my Momma and Daddy until I was 15 years old when my Mother got pregnant and we moved into a house all to ourselves to await the birth of my first and only sibling. 

Now, my grown up sense tells me that we were poor, because moving into the house with my uncle in a two bedroom house and sleeping in the same bedroom with my parents until I was 15 years old just lends itself to that fact.  But, the fact is, I never knew I was poor back then.  I thought everybody lived like we did.  Nobody ever treated me like I was different.  I went to the same school and church as my best friends and the whole town was sort of like a “family”.   I don’t think there was much of a social or status class structure as there was a respectable and honest and moral system.  

But I know now, we were poor and everybody didn't live like we did.  I know now that Momma and Daddy struggled so that I could have everything that was important to a girl growing up in my day.  I always had Christmas presents under the tree from Santa Claus.  I always had a birthday present.  I always had a new Easter dress and bonnet, shoes, socks, and gloves.  Just like all of my friends in town.  No difference. 

As I look back now, I have a particular memory that I would like to get off my chest.  One Christmas morning, I could hardly wait to run to the living room and look under the tree to see what Santa had brought.  I tore into the boxes looking eagerly for that doll that I was hoping for.  When I finally found the doll box and opened it, my face fell.  Inside was a beautiful BIG doll.  I remember how disappointed I was to see such a big doll!  I threw the doll down and cried out to Momma and Daddy, “I wanted a little baby doll!”  I am so ashamed even now to think how they must have felt.  Oh, if I could only take those words back…..

You see, for me, being poor and not knowing it, meant that my Momma and Daddy sacrificed so much so I could enjoy my life as carefree as possible.  My husband likes to chide me saying, "I was poor, and I knew it!"   I didn’t have a clue how very special I was.