I once lived under canvas over a rope

[sandnsea]

Sure, it was only for a few days, but I was broke and moving to a new town. I lived at the lake with my son, catching fish with marshmallows and corn, that we also ate after we cooked the fish. I was depending on social services to help me find housing. They tried to tell me that a tent was shelter, and send me and my child to the homeless encampment. But when I told them it was just a canvas tarp over a rope, they relented and gave me a voucher for a hotel room. I got a job a few days later and the hotel owner let me stay until I got a few checks and could pay her.

That came to mind because I think Obama lives by the same kind of "every day is extra" philosophy as John Kerry does. He's just always so dang happy. No drama Obama. Solve a problem and move on.

I mean, I think he must think about when he used to drive a car with a hole in the floor. Anything he gets now is pure gravy.

How about you? That's not my lowest point, there are some that are just too personal to put on a bulletin board. But it's definitely one that I can point to and say, hey, anything is gravy after that.

Got any you want to share? That point where you realize that what you have today is pretty damn good from where you once were, or could easily be again?

[baby_mouse]

1. No. Every day I curse my existence. I think to myself:

"Why am I not yet a famous and insanely successful person? WHY?"

Needless to say I am not a very happy person. Having an insane boss doesn't help.

[panader0]

2. I'ved lived in the woods for months on end.

I was a tree-thinner, under contract for the Forest Service about'75. I lived with my dog Miles on the units I cut and went home to the honey every other weekend. We could see Mt. St. Helens from parts of our work. It hadn't blown yet.

[sandnsea]

12. I worked on the Siskiyou in 74-75

I was the lovely voice on the radio in Oregon, that brought the crews the weather and fire updates. :hi:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Oh yeah.

I got me a few of them low points. I also have friends from those times, friends who were the ones "walking in, while others were walking out", so I have some real blessings from those times, too.''

But they don't call them "hard times" because they are easy, and I really want the hard times to end for me, and I am working hard and diligently to make them end, but sometimes, the frustration gets the best of me. As it does anyone. Damned few of us are boddhisattvas and whatnot.

[liberal renegade]

4. homeless in the Bay Area during the Reagan years

needless to say, it sucked....

[alfredo]

5. I lived in a large closet, in a Tent, on a porch, and a car at various times

in my life. The tent was the last time I was homeless. That was in 1975. I lived in Detroit, decided to leave, packed everything I owned into a driveaway car, dropped everything at my parent's house as I passed through Ky. Hitch hiked back after dropping off the car, found a job in Lexington. I put everything I needed on my bicycle and rode to Lexington. Spent the first night in a couch at an off campus frat house. The next day I met a guy that knew a gal that would let me camp on her farm some 16 miles out of town. I pitched my tent and commuted to work each day.

After my first check I found a cold water shack six miles closer. I moved in.

[hedgehog]

6. We drive used cars because my husband can fix them up and because

we're spending the money on our family instead. I stayed home when the kids were little; now my salary is going to pay for college. From time to time the car breaks down; usually when my husband is out of town (carsknow when he's not around!) It's a pain when it happens, but it makes me appreciate it every time I do get in the car and it runs properly. I can afford the AAA membership so I don't have to worry about getting a tow, and my husband repairs what ever is wrong. I really feel for the people who can't afford a tow and can't afford the repairs, either.

[sandnsea]

11. You don't speak of money

around your car either. They are quite selfish and petulant that way.

[grantcart]

7. not how far you fall its how high you bounce

went from being a CEO of a company of 400 to bartering fixing up a house for 6 months rent. Had to go to the library to read about "dry walling technique" in order to complete the work that I had told the home owner I was experienced at. For the first year everyone slept in sleeping bags and with no TV we listened to a single TV station that was rebrodcast on radio. If you think "Wheel of Fortune" is hard watching it, try doing it by listening to the radio where you cannot tell the number of letters and the order of the letters.

Ironically I think our family remembers that time as some of the best of times because we shared the experience, I wonder how your son remembers his experience.

[blogslut]

8. I've had some way bad stuff happen in my life

And yes, every day I wake up in a warm home with food, water and power is a good day.

[sandnsea]

10. I forget that sometimes

:hug:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

9. Not me, but my best friend...........

We were talking about his years when he was lost in drugs and booze. He really should have died. Got married twice and doesn't remember either wedding.

But then he cleaned it up, and he's been sober for almost thirty years. He likes to quote Raymond Carver, another alkie, who wrote about his sobriety:

"...“Don’t weep for me,”

he said to his friends. “I’m a lucky man.

I’ve had ten years longer than I or anyone

expected. Pure Gravy. And don’t forget it.”

Matt is precious to me, and not a day goes by that I'm not thankful that he turned it all into gravy, if only for the simple and pure joy of having him in my life.

[TayTay]

13. You are lucky

Not in having to endure what you did, but in coming out of it whole. (Maybe with scars, but whole, nevertheless.)

My parents, on both sides, bore deep wounds from the Depression and all the little indignities that kept life going then. Yeah, they survived those times, but the times also lived on in them. The shame of their circumstances back then never really left. Shame like that never really goes away; it lingers and waits for an opening.

Overwhelmingly, hard times make hard people. We don't ever want to relive the Depression. It did awful, humiliating, terrible things to people.

[sandnsea]

14. You are one of the treasures

in my life and have taught me more than you can imagine. :hug:

[Texasgal]

15. I was 17 when I left home

and told my parents I wanted to "find" myself.

This Texas chick took a bus to NYC with twenty dollars in my pocket. I arrived in NYC 3 days later with a backpack and no fear.

I slept at the YMCA and looked for work. I met people and ended up moving into a bohemian style apartment ( the bath tub was in the kitchen ) Five dollars seemed like a million to me back then.

After four months, my wanderlust depleted I moved back home and attended college.

I often think about those days and wonder how I ever survived. Things seem so complicated now as an adult. :(

[drmeow]

16. The worst was January 76 to May 76

between the time my parents sent me to live with my grandmother in California while they went BACK to Beirut, Lebanon (the civil war had started in '74) because my dad was under contract and hadn't been able to find a job in the US. Every time an AUB professor was kidnapped (and some f**king fellow 6th grader came in and asked, "is that your Dad?") I died a little.

[davsand]

17. Pregnant, on bed rest and getting screwed on medical bills. THEN they turned off the water.

Couldn't work, couldn't qualify for any help, and the bills were just getting higher because the company I worked for was "self insured" and denying my medical claims. Hubby was working multiple jobs and things were getting worse by the day. The final capper came when the water company turned off the water.

I drove out there and wrote a check that was gonna overdraft me by $5 (thus costing me an additional $25 from the bank to return said check unpaid to the water company who was gonna charge me for an NSF check...)

I laid on the bed and cried for a bit (hey-I was pregnant and totally hormonal!) All I could think of was that we were two educated people that were not sluggos or criminals and how could we have ever gotten to the point that our life was so screwed up over money? Then I realized that I was still pregnant--still gonna have the baby we'd wanted--and I was NOT gonna be confined to bed for too much longer. It really WAS gonna get better if we could only stick it out a little longer.

We managed to hang on for the next couple months and had a beautiful healthy baby. A couple months later I accepted 3/4 time job at a non-profit that allowed hubby to stay home with the baby when I was at work and then I kept her when he was in his office. We were not flush by any means, but we had running water and the bills were paid.

Two years later we bought our own house that had house payments about $400 less than our rent had been, and I was working full time with benefits that actually were legitimate ones. I had found an attorney to work on my medical billing issues and ended up suing my ex-employer who later got closed down for other unsavory stuff.

We got lucky, but I think that the days when it was not so good colored how we deal with our money. We both are pretty conservative about spending on stuff, and any major expenditure is only after careful consideration and much discussion. Make no mistake, MOST of us are only about two paychecks away from financial chaos unless we remember how bad it can get and how quick it can turn from sugar to sh*t.


Laura

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. I was lucky and have been lucky to never face that kind of hardship myself

but as a medic I got to see several things that remind me every day that I am indeed lucky and that life has to be lived every day

I've shared them in the past but will again

The kid who died during a cold spell due to his asthma that we treated in the field regularly since they didn't have money for the taxi, He was buried in his SUnday best at seven, with the only toy he ever had, a teddy bear I gave him in one of the calls. That was his only toy

Then there was Maria and the rest of his family. They called us on a December 24th because their son had a fever. We took care of the kid at the hospital and took them back home, it was a deadly slow day and taxis don't run, or didn't run after five O'Clock. We stopped at Costco and using my membership got them a full dinner, with all the fixings and food supplies for at least two weeks... the family lived in a hut, made out of cardboard, in the middle of a ciudad perdida. I also added some blankets since they had none. Some Federales took those from them when they arrived in the city.

Raul and his wife who delivered on a December 28th, they were as poor as can be. But they saw each other as truly blessed because they had each other. Next year they showed at the hospital to give us something hot to drink... and this happened for the next seven years, So after the second year I got that kid clothes and toys for Epiphany. He got the clothes for Christmas and the toys from the three wise men. Raul Jr was a bright boy, I wonder at times what has happened to him.

Last year after my dad fell, at the recovery hospital one of the cleaning ladies lost her home during this time of the year... well we got her kids all the things they needed for school, and some clothes. Again, in-spite of the fact that my dad was in a hospital with a broken hip, he was still much better off than this woman and her kids. So I went over to Office Depot and got notebooks, pens, pencils, colored pencils and two backpacks. Nothing eccentric, but enough to keep them in school. And loosing that stuff could have kept them away from school.

I'm also a child of a holocaust survivor, my dad... and that is truly as low as you can get... truly...

So you could say I have never been there, but have tired to help others in small ways.

THough it it counts I went through three western pacific deployments, two of them war patrols

[Libertyfirst]

19. Bless you, Nadinbrzezinski. If we each do a little,it becomes a tidal wave. n/t

[Fumesucker]

20. We spent three months in a tent with a three year old child..

Mild climate and it was spring/summer so not what I would consider a *real* hardship.

Staying in the tent rather than a motel room allowed us to save money much more rapidly than we would have been able to otherwise and we got a better place and a new (to us) vehicle out of it.

That wasn't the lowest point in my life by a considerable shot, but I don't want to talk about that time, it's too painful.

[Fumesucker]

21. Dupe.. self delete..