BATTLING POVERTY

When I was a kid, I lived in a wooden three-bedroom city row house occupied by seven people. Whoever built that house forgot to install radiators. The house was heated, so to speak, by an old coal furnace in the basement and what heat it produced made its way up through the house via metal grates in the floor. Our family bathtub was the kind of tub college kids now use to ice down a keg of beer, and the water used to fill that tub was heated on the kitchen stove, one bucket at a time. When we kids took a bath, my older sister went first. She got the fresh water. I went next and then my three younger siblings followed suit. After the youngest was finished, the tub was finally emptied. We thought we were clean.

We battled poverty by collecting discarded soda bottles and turning them into the small "ma & pa" grocery store across the street for the two cent deposit, by selling bluebells and dandelions each spring for a nickel a bunch to our neighbors and later by selling candy that my dad got from a local chocolate factory. He took us to upscale neighborhoods outside the city and we sold it door-to-door.

When President Johnson started the so-called war on poverty, we'd get government surplus food items on occasion…flour, butter, lard, powdered milk, corn syrup, canned beef, spam and sometimes potatoes. It wasn't much, but we made do with anything edible. It never occurred to me that there were people in this country far better off than me who resented the fact that I was getting free food to eat. I was just happy for a meal.

When food stamps replaced the government surplus program, my dad was reluctant to sign up for them. It didn't make sense to me. Food was food. By then, I'd had enough milk potato soup and boiled pot-pie to last a lifetime, and the notion of getting store-bought food seemed like a good thing. Still, Dad balked at the idea until things got so tight that he had no other choice.

I remember accompanying him to the grocery store when the food stamps arrived. If felt like Christmas in July. We loaded up the cart, mostly with the same stuff we'd been getting from government surplus, but with extras like chicken and fresh fish and apples, and headed to the check-out area. When the cashier finished ringing up all the items we were purchasing she gave my dad the total bill amount and he started fumbling in his pocket for the bulky coupon book that contained the food stamps. When he finally retrieved the book from his pocket and started to hand it to the cashier, she immediately became indignant and announced in a rather loud voice, "Oh look, more customers with food stamps." Patrons and cashiers in the neighboring check-out aisles turned and stared at us, and my aforementioned glee was immediately reduced to shame and humiliation. My dad tossed the food stamps on the conveyor belt and we left the store empty-handed. We never set foot in that store again.

I hated that cashier. A part of me still does. She didn't know my hunger and she didn't care to know. She didn't acknowledge my pain, but she was more than satisfied to heap humiliation and scorn upon me for wanting nothing more than some food in my belly. That's why I still loathe sanctimonious politicians and people who begrudge those in poverty for getting free food to eat, or government assistance with housing and medical care. I hate callous disregard for the suffering of others. It saddens and sickens me at the same time.

Today, I'm sitting in my four-bedroom home in suburbia with two cars in the garage, four computers and three flat-screen TVs to entertain the three of us who reside here. We've got a Wii, several DVD players and more remotes than even a couch potato like me can handle. The refrigerator in the kitchen is filled; so is the food pantry and the extra refrigerator in the basement.

With all that at my fingertips, you'd figure that I could finally put my poverty-related hatred to rest, but I can't. It still haunts me. Instead of collecting glass soda bottles, I collect aluminum cans. Five bucks from the recyclers feels like five million. Instead of food stamps, I clip coupons, dreaming for those opportunities when I can skillfully turn a piece of paper into free food…and every once and awhile when that happens, a cashier will look at me and say, "Good job!" And all I can say is "Amen!"