[fintstone]

Originally Posted by masraum

I'm curious, you've talked about growing up poor, and from the sounds of it, poor like I can't really understand.

When I was born, mom was a nurse and dad was a cop. After a bit, Dad went back into the military (enlisted) so we weren't rolling in dough, but we were comfortable. Mom didn't work for many years after dad went into the military, and we started travelling. I think my mom started working again when I was about 15. My parents saved for what they wanted and needed.

When and where did you grow up?

Rural Appalachian mountains...like what you saw on Walton's Mountain on TV...just much, much poorer than on that show (as poor folks don't own sawmills, a big house, or an entire mountain). Sorta what you would see in the movie Deliverance except poorer and minus the Hollywood version/fantasy of perversion and criminality. Hard working people who went to church on Sunday and worked daylight to dark to eke out an existence growing their own food, cutting their own wood for heat and cooking, etc...as there were no real local jobs.

I am quite familiar with the military lifestyle...it was a way out for me and others. I though I was rich when I got my first military paycheck as a teen...as I made more than both my parents combined.