I know from poor. Not poverty–I’ve never known poverty–but I know what it is to be poor.
As a music major at SF State, I earned money playing orchestra and quartet gigs, worked minimum wage jobs, but still didn’t have much by way of money. To supplement my meager budget, I used to go around the back of United Market in San Rafael and pick fruit and veg out of the dumpsters. The produce manager was kind enough to turn a blind eye to my forays, occasionally even handing me old orange crates to pack up my booty. Beans and rice were the mainstays of my diet (I was a vegetarian, then), and any extra money I was able to cadge went to new strings for my viola and gas money for friends taking me to symphony gigs in Stockton or Santa Rosa.
When I won a scholarship at an overseas music academy, my parents–pissed off at my chutzpah for moving halfway across the globe–begrudgingly sent the occasional $50 as a stipend, but for the most part I had to work cleaning apartments and subbing in the Jerusalem Symphony for money. I shopped in the shuk, haunting the end-of-day sales for the best deals (nothing lasts long in the heat of the Israeli desert), and bought Structured Vegetable Protein (SVP) by the bagful. I was still a vegetarian, but only by necessity. The day I discovered that calf’s liver was very cheap and, cooked properly, even edible, was a day of rejoicing.
Returning to the States, I continued my underfunded life, this time on a bank teller’s wage. When I met the woman who would be my wife, the first thing we did as a couple was open a joint account. We put $10 in it. It was the best we could do, but it was a start. For years, we often had more month than money. In those days, when you wrote a check at the grocery store, it took a while for it to get to the bank and hit your account. Using my inside knowledge as a bank teller, I knew that Alpha Beta, our economy grocer, posted check receipts twice a week. Add in the transit time and we had 3-4 days of “float” before we had to deposit funds to cover the check we’d written. We kited a lot of checks near month’s end.
We drove crappy cars. We darned socks and patched jacket elbows. We got our TV signal free from the airwaves. A splurge was a dinner at McDonald’s. We lived down in The Canal, a shitty part of town. (One night I woke up to hear the cop outside our window instruct our upstairs neighbor to “Drop the weapon!”) For extra money, I still played gigs with orchestras and quartets, always wearing the same three-piece tuxedo I wore in high school, a frightful old thing of sculptured polyester and heeled, two-toned Oxfords (yes, it was that bad). We slept on a twin bed; she got the mattress, and I got the box spring.
I borrowed $97.50 from my parents for a ring. She bought her wedding dress at the Gunny Sax outlet store. We got married in a public park. We honeymooned in a friend’s cabin. We paid for the whole thing ourselves, so you’ll understand why, when I found my mother giving away our unopened (and thus returnable) champagne as parting gifts, I got a little steamed.
We worked hard to increase our income. When we relocated to Seattle, I got a job in banking again, but this time on the technical side, a happy accident that led to my landing a position as a programmer. Slowly, I advanced, teaching myself what I needed to know to advance.
I’ve been a programmer for over a quarter century, now, and I make a good living. We have a nice home, a new car, and enough money to afford travel, good food, and nice things. I’ve shown my wife the place in London where, when I was stuck there for a week with only $20 to my name, I stole milk from a Kensington stoop at dawn.
We both remember being poor.
And now we’re going to do it again.
By choice.
[To be continued…]
k
[…] « Let’s Be Poor – Part I […]
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I’m eagerly awaiting part II 🙂 Are you gearing up?
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Ha! Yes, a bit. Mostly, though, we had a few days off for my wife’s birthday and I’ve been concentrating on that. This week. I promise.
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We’d dumpster dive for used “Holiday Cassette”s. (The music you’d hear on auto-loop around Xmas.) We’d then put a piece of tape over the “do not record” hole on the cassette and record our own music on the cassette for distribution.
It was a free way to get a bunch of demo tapes out to people. DIY at its finest.
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I both fear for and admire you.
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I’m new to your writing, and your…blog? Journal? But I have to ask, why are you “going to do it again.”? By choice! What would necessitate you to willingly go back to being poor? I’m currently there, and see no draw to it.
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Ah, you’ll have to wait for Part II, eh? 😉
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Sneaky sneaky 🙂
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Oh, Kurt . . . I remember the days of “floating” checks too.
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So, you’re who stole my milk!
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And I’m contemplating the same thing. Perhaps we can share some of the milk sitting next to our tent on the waterfront.
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Location location location.
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I-yi-yi! Talk about a cliffhanger… ! Hopefully it’s all for the good!
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