My sophomore year of high school my father was medically retired from the army. It took him 18 months to find a new job that paid enough money to pay all our bills. In that time both my grandparents had illnesses that required them to be hospitalized long term. We sold everything we could, my mom’s car, personal items and almost all our stock. My mother and I kept the farm running and my dad worked a day job bagging groceries, worked as a substitute teacher and worked a night job counting stock for an inventory service. My little sister and I went to school early so that we could have free lunch and breakfast. My dad swallowed his pride and accepted government assistance and help from our church. We also had the small amount of my dad’s government pension. Between my grandparent’s bills and the note on our farm, we barely made ends meet. For that year and a half my mother bought only the minimal amount of necessities to feed us, everything else we ate came from our garden or hunting. We took several deer out of season. Eventually my dad found better work, my grandfather passed away and our bills evened out, but in that time we did anything and everything to keep our home and feed ourselves. For you to sit there at your computer, puff out your chest and pass judgment on me and my family is asinine. If you’ve never been that poor you will never, ever understand what it is like. Once you’ve been poor like that a part of your heart is always poor. I hope you and your family never go through something like that, but if you do I hope you look back on this and understand what I mean.