Poverty is humiliating, almost nothing good can be said of it, except, perhaps that it builds character and an appreciation of the value of hard work. Being poor can be a temporary state. Because of the fact that my father died before I turned 3 years old, I grew up on welfare. It embarrassed me, I was always ashamed of being on welfare. That is why, as soon as I was old enough, I swept floors, and shined shoes to make some money. and have always been industrious.
When I was in elementary school, I received a free lunch every day, courtesy of some program that I don't remember the name of. I had a friend, Donald Hnat, that would sometimes have an extra 5 cents that he would give me to purchase an ice cream. On one such occasion, a cafeteria worker informed me that if I had money for ice cream that I could afford lunch, so I either had to give up the ice cream or the free lunch. Possibly this was when I first began to dislike "authority" figures.
Another, such occasion was as I was let off of the school bus at the end of every day during the middle school years. I would get off of the bus and actually wait for the bus to leave, so that my peers would not see which building that I would enter as my home. As if it made any difference, because all the homes in the slums of Ellicott City were all impoverished looking.
The limited perception of a child could only see that old Ellicott City was a slum, not Historic and interesting, as I would see it later in life.
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