These are stressful times. That’s what I hear every time I watch the news, read commentary online or talk to people at the grocery store. Money’s tight, and it’s tough out there.
Maybe I was born with a lack of ambition. Maybe I’m just too silly to recognize the value of a shiny new car, tickets to the theater or a life with plenty of dough. I don’t seem to be in sync with the rest of the world, and it’s probably my fault.
I’m not so silly that I don’t recognize the sharp downturn in my own business. Sales and revenues are down 80% from what they once were, and “pickins are slim,” as my grandmother would have said. I reckon that Mary Ann and I have less today than we’ve had at any time in the last thirty years. If the wolf isn’t at the door he’s for sure coming up the walk.
Still, things don’t seem so bad to me. In fact, things seem pretty good. I think I know why.
To explain, I’ll have to tell a story from a long time ago. It’ll take a few minutes, so bear with me. Here goes…
On that winter evening in 1972 when Mary Ann and I were married I had just enough money to pay the preacher, pay for dinner at a nice restaurant, and pay the cab fare to the little apartment that was to be our first home. The cab driver cut me a break and waived his fare as a wedding present. When the evening was over we still had Mary Ann’s $37 paycheck with which to set up housekeeping. We were poor right out of the gate.
Shortly after our wedding we stumbled upon the greatest place in all of Austin for two college kids like us to live. It was a giant 3000 sq. ft. apartment in an old fourplex, just one block from the southwest corner of the UT campus. The other three apartments were occupied by octogenarian women who were thrilled to have us younguns around to open jars and prescription bottles. The rent was $90 per month, utilities paid.
Our total income consisted of Mary Ann’s earnings at a minimum wage, part-time office job and what I earned lettering award certificates for the National Guild of Piano Teachers. Calligraphy didn’t pay much. I’d sit in the UT main library with a stack of certificates and write until my hand was falling off. I think they paid a dime per certificate.
Between the two of us, we made about $225 per month, or about $900 per month in 2009 dollars.
In addition to our rent, we paid $45 per month on a used Toyota Corolla, $8 for auto insurance, and budgeted $15 per week for food. We ate a lot of beans and weenies. This left $3.75 per week for everything else. Gasoline, clothing, personal items, medicine, entertainment. We washed our clothes in the bathtub.
There was a Mexican restaurant with an “all you can eat” lunch and dinner special just two blocks from our apartment. Sometimes we’d take our books (and a stack of certificates) there, eat lunch, then work at the table until time for supper. Two “all you can eat” meals for the price of one! Still, we couldn’t often afford it.
We furnished the living room of our giant apartment with a $10 well used red sofa we bought from a friend, a pair of 2’ x 2’ plastic parson’s tables and two cheap ceramic lamps (2 for $5) from K-Mart. We had a big metal foot locker that had been issued to my dad by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. The foot locker served as our coffee table.
Our living room ensemble was completed by a large bookcase expertly constructed of cinder block and plywood. Mary Ann painted some of the cinder blocks. It was the centerpiece of the room.
The only other furniture in our apartment was a rollaway bed. You know, the kind that folds up in the middle and sits on casters. Oh yeah… we did have a great cardboard box that served as a nightstand. It said “Nabisco” on all four sides.
No dining table, no chairs. No chests of drawers, dressers, desks, stools or chairs. We had a lot of open space in that giant apartment to dance or play whiffle ball! We had fun.
At the beginning of 1973, as we entered our second year of marriage, things changed dramatically. I don’t know whether we moved up or down the socio-economic ladder, but we certainly moved out of the American mainstream.
After considerable conversation, we sold the Corolla and scraped together enough to buy a home on four wheels—a used, tan and white VW bus. It would be our home for the next two years, and it served us well.
Much has been said and much has been written about that VW bus. We haven’t always wanted to tell the whole truth about our life on the road. People, we’ve found, don’t always want to hear the truth, and we haven’t always wanted to own up to just how poor we were. I’m not sure why. Anyway, here’s the unvarnished version.
We carried our clothes in two cardboard boxes. A big box held pants, shirts, blouses and dresses, and a smaller box held underwear and socks. Sometimes we had the money to eat in a cafe, but mostly we ate in the bus.
Often we stayed in cheap motels, and often we slept in the bus. We traveled, usually four days a week, often driving in shifts through the night. Pickle and pimento loaf was cheap, and peanut butter was a staple.
I remember spotting five old rusted Airstream trailers sitting in a field outside Paragon, Indiana. We rented several nights in one of those trailers at $2 per night while we waited for a Greyhound bus to bring parts for the VW bus from Indianapolis.
To the extent that we worried, we worried about finding enough entrepreneurial opportunity at the side of the road to keep us fed and moving from town to town. We would buy things in one town and sell them in the next. We would make things—pretty things, unusual things, things we thought people would like—and trade them for cash or gasoline in towns from Texas to Maine. We practiced capitalism in the trenches.
We made very little money, but we were happy. Not just a little happy, but wildly happy. We were in love, and we were together. It didn’t matter where we laid our heads at night, so long as Mary Ann went to sleep in my arms.
It had been hard getting to that place. Really hard, and for a long time. We had been just teenagers when trouble came our way, and those against us had been many and strong. For three years the battle had raged. It had taken its toll and was continuing yet.
There had been many times when it seemed near impossible that there would ever be an “us,” and we were thankful for the life we’d found together. Whether in a motor court on some back highway, an Airstream trailer sitting in a field, or in our bus at the side of the road, every night Mary Ann went to sleep in my arms. We were finally where we belonged.
Compared to where we had been and what we had gone through, being poor was easy.
Now, it’s 2009 and times are tough again. They’ve been tough since early last year, shortly after Mary Ann and I accidentally made some discoveries. Startling and unexpected discoveries of things from a long time ago. Some were wonderful and welcome, others painful and sad.
These discoveries compelled us to look once again at secrets we carefully bundled, boxed, burned and buried a very long time ago. Ghosts from decades past rose again from old letters and documents, and hearts still sore, even after so many years, lived again those best and worst of times … times of which for decades we’d never spoken.
For days, we sat together holding hands, sorting and sifting through memories long suppressed and putting into place new pieces to old puzzles. It was a time of great joy, and it was a time of tears.
Within days we were interrupted by forces beyond our control. A heart attack sent me to the emergency room and into cardiac surgery. Once again, just as during the months we were apart so many years ago, Mary Ann sat alone through a night in prayer, asking God to let us be together.
The doctors gave her little encouragement, but the odds had never been on our side. Still, we always believed in each other, and we always counted on one another, and God had never let us down.
Heart attack. Kidney failure. Aortal aneurysm. More. No doubt about it, times have been tough. Still, every day Mary Ann has been at my side, and every night she’s gone to sleep in my arms.
Just like 1972.
Sure, business is slow and money’s tight. I reckon we’ve got less today than we’ve had at any time in 30 years. Still, things don’t seem all that bad. In fact, things are pretty good. It’s a matter of perspective.
Compared to what we’ve been through, being poor is easy. I’ll bet the same is true for millions of people whose stories we’ll never know. Maybe it’s the same for you.
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There are many things worse than being poor. I think, though, that it may be necessary to live it to learn it.