You literally won't get it

Because even I won't get it, and I'm writing it.

What is poverty?  What does that word mean directly to you right now?  What is hardship in your life?  What are tough times?

When I think about all of these I believe I have had them in spades.

At one point we had two cars.  The first one got stolen, and then recovered in very bad, un-drivable shape.  The second one just stopped working, wiring some where was killing the battery.  Then somebody loaned us a crappy car, and that one broke down.  Then I was driving a work van, but it was a two seater and I didn't want to put our baby in the back cage with the tools.  Then my brother loaned us a pickup truck and we put the car seat in the middle when we had to go somewhere.  It was winter time and the weather dropped to below zero, I went out to get in the truck and the driver side door handle broke off in my hand.

We had five cars, and the only one we could drive was a pickup truck sitting three wide where everybody had to get in through the passenger side door.

Those were tough times.  I drank a lot.  We had an eight hundred square foot condo which was nicely situated in a neighborhood where cars were stolen regularly.  I would watch netflix and fall asleep on the floor because I was working a ton of hours.  I would wake up when my one year old would crawl over and slap my face.  It was her favorite game.  My wife was working even more hours than I was.

Somebody once asked during that time what was good in my life, I said "nothing is good in my life" and started crying.

Those were times of poverty, that was pure hardship.

My grandfather once told me that during the great depression they were lucky because they had chickens and could eat eggs.  Anytime anybody came over and they were hungry his mom would cook them an egg.  Bob ate eggs for three years straight.  He doesn't like eggs anymore.

He was a runner, state record holder in New York in the mile for seventeen years.  He would run along the rail road tracks and pick up coal that fell off the trains that went past so they wouldn't freeze to death at night.

His older brother died in WWII, and as soon as he was seventeen Bob signed up too.

I don't get it.  I mean I literally can't fathom times that hard.  Is a country salvageable where difficult times include a working car, enough money to buy cheap liquor and warm house?

I know there are people who have it much worse then I do, but as Bob said, they were lucky too.