(11-24-2012 07:45 PM)BCBronco Wrote: Here's the thing, this isn't some academic exercise for me, I lived on the on the streets, I was homeless, unemployed and at age 24 actually had to go bankrupt as a barely wet behind the ears young man.
I lived the life, not poor as in "my parents cut me off so I'd better get my chit together and I've got to eat ramen for a bit"' but poor as in " I've got no resoureses, no support, no family and no confidence poor" in a very harsh society. It's a poor you can only imagine living in the back of a Plymouth and stealing food from the store.
Not trying to compare or one up, because I can't. But I can tell you why I believe people should be more self reliant, based on my own story.
When my dad was in the 11th grade, he lied about his age, and joined the Navy, thus entering WWII. He did one tour during WWII, and a partial tour during the Korean War. When he got out he became a sheet metal worker for Clark Fork Lift. To build our house he tore down two houses set for demolition, removed nails from the lumber, and built our house on weekends and after work. He got his high school equivalency, and began taking engineering classes by night and through correspondence. After several years and promotions he began supervising the assembly of container carriers at major eastern ports. It was new technology for the time. The money was pretty good, and my mom quit her job packaging guitar strings for Squires.
I was turning 11, and we were joining the middle class. The night after my 11th birthday my dad had stroke. He died two hours later. He had enough life insurance to pay for the funeral. My mom went off the deep end and burned through whatever savings we had on trips to Florida, etc. She needed distractions. For three years my brother and I pretty much raised ourselves. As the prospect of college drew near my mom made it clear that we were on our own.
I had a job in my junior/senior year of high school and my first year of college. It was at Owens Gas on Capital Ave. in Lakeview. My mom received a social security check in my name, but refused to turn it over to me to help with tuition. I told her, "If I stop going to college you stop receiving the check." Didn't matter, she wasn't going to give it to me. So I lived at home, paid my mom rent, and took two classes at KCC and 2 at WMU. After a year I got a job delivering pizza for Dominos in Kazoo to go along with my job at the gas station. I had a couple of high school friends going to WMU who were living in a 4 man dorm. One of the four was pretty much living with his girlfriend, so I moved in with them. The next year I moved into Bigalow Hall as a resident. They along with a friend who had gone to the Air Force Academy were the driving force keeping me in college. I wasn't going to let these guys pass me by.
I quit the job in BC, and was able to fund my schooling with the money I made at Dominos. Later that year I got a job with a grocery chain. At the time Kroger, Meijer, and AP were union stores and paid well. So the other stores paid good wages to keep the unions out. Slowly I began upping my credit hours, I was making decent money, and three of us moved into White Hall apartments. I was around 24 at the time, and most of my friends were graduating and getting jobs. I had around 60 credit hours, just enough to know I could finish this. Around that time Post Cereal offered me a job. If you grew up in BC a good paying factory job was the pinnacle of success. I had an uncle who had graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. I believe he was the only person in our family to graduate or go to college. He told me if I took that job and passed up my college education I would regret it someday. It was exactly what I wanted to hear. My immediate family nearly disowned me thinking I was nuts to pass up such a golden opportunity.
In my 7 or 8 years of college I took out one student loan, which I foolishly used to buy a Fooseball Table and a VCR (A VCR was something like $700 at the time).
It took me three more years to finish school. I graduated just before my 27th birthday. I met and married the bank teller who had been cashing my check for the past three years. When I finished I got a job as a sales rep for Ora-Ida (div. of Heinz), and my wife took a job in a hospital. She dropped down to part time and I helped put her through college to get her RN degree. At age 30 I took a job with the frozen foods Div. of Pillsbury and my wife got an RN job at a local hospital. Our household income and standard of living was beyond anything I could have imagined as a kid. I suspect there are days when you kick yourself wondering how you ended up at where you are today.
After high school my brother had taken a party time job in the now defunct print division of Kelloggs. They cut that division and he took a minimum wage clerical job in Kelloggs Logistics Div. He worked his way up logistics and was offered a chance to work at Salada Tea in NY, a division of Kelloggs at the time. He took it, and three years later was running the plant. After 7 years in NY, he was offered an executive position back in BC. He took night classes at WMU to get a general studies degree, because without it he couldn't advance. His wife was a HR director at BC natural gas (now SEMCO). They lived off his check, and bought Kellogg stock with her entire check. He retired a Director at age 51, a multi millionare.
I know your story. It's very compelling. I'm not telling you this to compare it to being an orphan or being homeless. I'm telling it because it's what shaped me. Me nor my brother should be in this position today. We could easily be slugging down PBRs in some BC slum. Right or wrong I expect others to pull themselves up by their own boot straps because if you wait for others to do it for you, it's never going to happen.
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This guy pretty much nails Black Friday
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