Reply #35: Being poor. [View All]

I was poor for about 10 years when I was much younger (mostly in my 20s). I hated being poor but I am grateful for the experience. I am also grateful that it hasn't been the other way around- prosperous or at least comfortable early and then poor in later years...I think that would be much harder to take.

I grew up in a conservative, middle class family. My early political reading included "National Review" and "Conscience of a Conservative." I moved out west to San Diego and started living on my own. I got a temporary job as a firefighter with the State of California. I was laid off at the end of "fire season" and found out what it was like to be unemployed.

Fortunately, I was able to stay with a friend for a few weeks while I was job hunting. Having no luck with want ads in the newspaper, I turned to the yellow pages in the phone book. I got up to "J" before I got a nibble... for a night-time janitorial service. They would go in and clean businesses after they closed. The man who hired me was a Mr. Gomez- I forget his first name now- I didn't work there very long. What I will never forget is what he said to me. He told me he hired me because he believed that ANYONE WHO WAS WILLING TO WORK SHOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE A JOB.

He could only afford to use me part-time because he was already employing relatives and his business wasn't very large. I was his stray cat.

I soon moved on, finding the next in a succession of 30 or so other jobs and scraped by for the next decade before I finally found a decent-paying, regular full-time job. My inherited conservative political philosophy had long since been discarded...