Growing Up In An Age When People Were Poor But Happy
Penned by Jimmie Burroughs
I grew up really poor but didn’t know it because everyone who lived around me was poor also. There wasn’t any Television, so I was ignorant of the way the rich lived. I did not know a rich person until I was grown. In 1943 my folks moved from two rooms, what had once been a grocery store, into a 3 room bungalow; I was 5 years old at the time. It was an old farm house that had been taken into the city limits; it still had the large old barn with the hay loft. The street was dust, and in the summer when it was dry there was about a half inch of dust built up. It felt so good to stroll down the street barefooted and feel the dust squishing between my toes;
Dad paid $7 a month rent. That wasn’t bad since a day’s salary was around $5. There weren’t any utilities to pay; the house had no running water or electricity. There had been a deep well out back with a long cylinder and a rope to lower for water. There was a shelf on the back porch for a water bucket with a dipper. Within there was a living room, that served also as a bedroom, with a bed and a potbellied stove, and a battery operated radio where my pop listened to the Amos and Andy show and the Lone Ranger, and some of the other shows that were broadcast on radio before television. There were also 3 or 4 cane back chairs and an oil lamp. The floors, walls and ceiling were all made from center match wooden boards. There was also badly worn linoleum on the floor with lumps missing round the edge. The best I can remember, the walls were grungy and possibly hadn’t been painted in a very long time. Mom was a good house keeper and there was never any junk around. Dad kept the yard the same way.
The kitchen was furnished with a cupboard like you see in antique stores today with the flour bin and a small storage place for pots and a few groceries. There was a coal oil cooking stove that blew up on occasion and kept a massive black spot on the ceiling, and a table with four chairs. Oh, I kind of didn’t remember to mention the ice box was on the back porch where the ice man could keep it stocked with ice during summer months. In winter time dad had a wooden box attached to the exterior of the kitchen window; the window could be raised and food stored there, lol. In the bedroom there was a bed, a side table with an oil lamp, and a chest of drawers. I remember that in winter you had to have a pile of cover at night to keep toasty; water would freeze in the bedroom. I do not believe the doors had locks; if this is so they were never used and I cannot remember ever seeing a door key. Crucial to mention also is that there was an outhouse inside the barn; a one hole, we did have some class. There was also a Sears catalogue and it wasn’t for reading.
I’m sure it sounds strange to you the way in which we lived back then, but there couldn’t have been a more happy little boy growing up than I. I loved living there. I had the four huge oak trees with the toe sack, bag swing and a lot of shade to play under. The house was high enough to crawl under, sit down and dig holes and make little lakes and streams with bridges and roads for tiny wooden play automobiles. There was a stream close by for fishing, and the old swimming hole where I learned how to swim. And the barn, what a great place for corncob battles with the area children, and there was always lots of ammunition. Pop always kept the barn well stocked with hay to feed the cattle he pastured on a farm simply a block down the street. The bales of hay in the loft were superb for building a hideout. Father always succeeded in making a meager living without having a regular job; he needed to be self-employed. My folks as far back as I am able to remember were self-employed.
When I was older, pop would give me a quarter on Sat. to go to movies, which were always westerns: Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, or Lash Laure. There was also enough left over from the quarter for a soda and a bag of popcorn. I didn’t even know the word bored and still don’t use it until this day.
What a different world we are living in today where children just exercise their thumbs texting and set round the house eating nibbles, playing computer console games and protesting about being bored.
. Baths were not so frequent in those days, but occasionally the 3 washtub was set out in the summer sun to heat water for a bath. During winter the water was warmed on the pot belly stove. I don’t remember how frequently we bathed, nonetheless it must not have been more often than once a week. I do remember mom giving me a sponge bath out of a wash pan at the end of the day before bedtime.
The one great thing I had when I was just about 12 was a new bike that pa acquired me. It cost $65 and was the prettiest bike I had ever seen. $65 in those days was more than most anyone earned in a whole week of work. Nobody in my neighborhood had a bike like that one. I have never been prouder of anything than I was that bike, not even my first new convertible.
Those were some of the most happy years of my life; some toys; not even a telephone and naturally no Television. My pop didn’t even own a vehicle till I was a teenager.
Folk ate more healthy in those days. During summer it was usually garden vegetables, and in winter it was beans and potatoes and cornbread, and occasionally wild meat father hunted or chicken which he raised. There had been an occasional blackberry cobbler made of wild blackberries that grew in the woods nearby or from due berries that grew along the railroad tracks.
The house I explained above was less than 500 sq. feet and potentially would have sold for a few hundred dollars. I do not believe at that point in my life the sort of house I lived in would have made much difference. In reality I don’t believe it has ever made much difference. I have lived in small homes and large ones and must not say it ever mattered much which it was as far as happiness goes.
Things actually have changed from those days. There is no comparison to how folks lived then and now. Lately the largest house in the world was completed at the cost of one bn. dollars. It is 27 stories tall and has 392,000 sq. feet of living space. LOL, that’s only 784 times bigger than the house I got raised in. Ironically it is in India where one 3rd of the least wealthy folk in the world live and starvation is epidemic. I ponder how a little boy would feel living in a house like that where he could get lost and not found for days, and no dirt to play in, or toe sack swing. Wow! It has got to be horrible boring.
Each story should make a point. The point of this story isn’t that being poor makes somebody happy, nor does being rich make an individual happy. Happiness goes beyond the material things of life. I have tried to investigate my personal life to establish what made me happy in the periods when I was happy and what made me unhappy during certain periods of my life.
My subconscious mind must have worked on it all night as it was on my mind when I awoke this A. M.. Here is what I’ve determined: I think it is first the relations in life, and 2nd the things we do, and 3rd the people we are around that promotes contentment or takes away from it. I read yesterday, “You are as happy as you opt to be.” I believe a better method of asserting it would be, “You are as happy as the choices you make.” I choose to have a relationship with God; I chose to have a mate that I might be happy with; I choose to do things that make me happy; I have chosen to be with folks that I am happy to be around. The times in my life that I was unhappy were the times I was doing something that did not make me happy and was around people who appeared to make it their purpose in life to attempt to make me as unhappy as they.
Occasionally all it takes to spoil your happiness is an arrogant and terrible director, or a mean and upsetting person that you must consistently have deal with. In my lifetime I have handled both, but not ever again. If you find yourself in that kind of circumstance, there’s only 1 solution and that is to move on to another job (Ideally become your own employer as I did) or remove yourself from the presence of folks that are hard people to be around, which I did and I do. So to repeat, much of contentment it is set by the relationships you have, the things that you do, and the people you are around.
About the author: Jimmie Burroughs is an inspiring speaker and author who has been concerned in teaching Christian Personal Development for at least 30 years. He’s a dedicated disciple of Jesus Christ, and considers helping people to become their very best through individual expansion is his primary focus in life. His website contains over 600 articles on preparing yourself for success through private development and the things which go with private development. His writing centres on the truth instead of fluff that just teases the ears.