You know, a lot of people think poverty means homeless people who wear rags and carry their stuff around in plastic garbage bags. I guess they’re right, but there’s another kind of poverty too. In a way, I think it’s even harder. Those homeless people can usually get a free meal and maybe a place to sleep. When you have to pretend that everything’s OK, it’s harder. They don’t have to pretend. I did.

The biggest ways poverty has effected me won’t make a whole lot of sense unless I tell you about my Freshman year in high school. That was a rough year. I loved school, and got really good grades. The best thing about school was that I could just sit for about five or six hours and not be afraid. That meant a lot to me - not being afraid. And I could do something I liked to do and could do well. At home, I couldn’t seem to do anything right, and I was always afraid. In school, this wasn’t true.

My Freshman year I was 12 and 13. Poodle skirts were all the rage, and a lot of the girls had knee socks and bobby socks and pleated skirts and sweater sets. I had one skirt - yeah, one skirt. It was a plain dark gray tweed, and I wore it every single day. I had a pair of sneakers, and that was good because I could wear them to work and to school. I was working in a nursing home nights and evenings. The bad thing about sneakers is that they wore through fairly fast. I never put a matchbook in my shoes like then old joke, but I did line then with cardboard. When a hole showed up or got bigger, I just made another layer of cardboard from whatever box was around. Almost all the other girls had boots; shoe-boots were really popular then. They looked really nice, and I think they must have been warm too. I always wanted a pair of shoe-boots…shiny black ones with furry insides. But, I had to make do with sneakers. On some of the really cold days, it was kind of hard. I sort of had a unwritten law when the temperature dropped below zero: if my legs were pink, I walked. If they were red and purple, I ran. If they were white, I got scared and tried to get inside somewhere fast.

This was also the year of the baking powder biscuit. No, that isn’t a joke. I wish it were. We had plenty of flour, but not much else. We had baking powder biscuits made a thousand different ways. We had them for breakfast, lunch and supper. I know now that it wasn’t a balanced diet, but back then I was pretty grateful to have something in my stomach. Sometimes we splurged and put butter on them, or even some sugar. It’s amazing what you can do with a biscuit.

The hardest thing for me was taking my lunch to school. A lot of the kids bought hot lunches. Some brought their lunches from home. I saw what the other kids were eating, things like sandwiches, fruit, cookies, potato chips, milk. Oh, I wished I could have a lunch like that! But I always had baking powder biscuits. Me, in my one skirt with my crappy little bag of baking powder biscuits. I guess I was kind of embarrassed about sitting at the table with the other kids. I didn’t want them to know what I had and start teasing me. I used to go to the girls bathroom and shut myself in a toilet stall to eat lunch. Yeah, sitting on the toilet with my baking powder biscuits.

How it’s affected me now? Well, for one thing, I’m a plate cleaner. Even if the food is something I don’t particularly like, or if I’m really not hungry, I clean my plate. I even eat things like parsley and lemon and potato skins - things that a lot of people leave. I guess it goes back to making the most of a good meal, because I didn’t know where my next one was coming from. It’s funny. When I’m in a fancy restaurant now, or with people for dinner, I have to remember NOT to be such a plate cleaner. My instincts tell me never to leave a morsel; my manners tell me otherwise.

The other thing I am is a second hand "junker." Maybe that isn’t even a word, but it’s what my husband calls me. Even though I can now afford just about anything I need, I love rummage sales and tag sales. When I can fill a bag for a dollar, I have this wonderful feeling of how much clothing I have. I don’t care if someone else has worn it and discarded it. The shirt I’m wearing right now is from a church rummage sale. Why do I like crap if I can afford anything I want? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t afford clothing for so long. Maybe it’s because, somewhere deep down inside, I truly believe that second hand is all I’m worth. I guess I feel kind of guilty if I spend more than a little bit. I guess it all has something to do with self esteem and self worth - things I’m sadly lacking in. But, without asking a whole lot of questions that hurt to answer, I’m more comfortable in my shirt that cost about a dime. I guess it’s just me.