GROWING UP POOR, OR SO I THOUGHT

I was reading through my old posts again today, and came across this one. I cried as I read not just the post, but the comments from the family. I enjoyed reliving the memories again, and thought you all would too. Feel free to leave more comments if you remember anything else. I have to say, I think I laughed the hardest about the homemade underwear for birthday presents! Mom and dad, thanks for the richest childhood a kid could ever have... How many times have I said, "I grew up poor"? Have you ever said it? I felt deprived eating homemade whole wheat bread...imagine! And straight out of the oven, to boot. Do you know many people who have done that in their lifetime? This post is dedicated to my parents, who did what they had to do to feed 10 children, and to two other special familes who saw when we needed help, and helped while sparing our dignity at the same time. This will be written according to my memories as a child, having been thought out with an adult mind. I will try to be as accurate as possible, but you may all feel free to interject in your comments the memories that come to you through reading this. My mom made wholesome, homemade bread, and didn't just feed it to us, but taught us to feed it to others... My dad built a chicken coop, and filled it with chickens. We had plenty of eggs and meat, and a great alarm clock too...

We ate fried eggs, boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, omelets, and watched many an egg hatch into a new baby chick that would someday provide these 10 hungry children with more fried, boiled, and scrambled eggs...

This is where another special family comes into the picture. Kirk and Larue Lynn, who could have provided us with a gallon of milk everyday if they had wanted to, instead loaned us Daisy, their gourney cow, and let us learn to care for it, feed it, and milk it.

We put Daisy in our pasture, fed her, milked her, gave one of the days milking's to the Lynn's and kept the other for our family. I have really thought a lot about their generosity in doing this, and the chance we had to work for this blessing, dignity intact...

How can we forget the potato picking days? I remember Maurice Kay's family plowing the potato field at harvest time, and all our family would go to the plowed field and gather hundreds of pounds of potatoes. At the time, I thought we were just helping the Kay's, but it is interesting that we had bags and bags of big, beautiful potatoes to carry us throught till the next season. Another act of kindness from a family that could see our need. They allowed us to help them while they helped us. Dignity intact...

I remember getting sick of potatoes, and wishing I had potato chips like all my friends. Oh, but how I now LOVE a steaming baked Potato, and would take it over chips any day...

Once again, the thoughtfulness of the Kay family, as they invited us each year when it was apple picking time. Weren't those the best apples ever! No apple has ever tasted so good. Somehow, after picking and picking, and picking, we ended up with boxes and boxes of apples to feed all these hungry mouths. I wonder if we picked as many as we got to keep...

I feel so very blessed to have had so many truly caring friends as the Kay's, the Lynn's, and many others I don't even know about, the kind that don't just give you a fish, they teach you how to fish! I can say the same for my parents as well, they truly gave us the tools we needed to make it in this world. They taught us to work hard, and they taught us to love each other. In talking about how others helped us, I cannot neglect to say that I watched our parents help others any chance they could find. What a great example they were, and still are as they serve the Lord and the people of Alaska...

Shall we just relive a few memories of how "poor" we were? Who remembers fried eggs in butter?

How about roasted chicken, chicken soup, chicken and rice...

Apples, apple juice, dried apples, fruit leather, apple sauce, apple crisp, apple pie...

Milk, homemade butter, homemade yoghurt, homemade icecream...

Luscious baked potatoes filled with butter, sourcream, and salad. How about fried potatoes, potato pancakes, mashed potatoes, potato soup...

I only wish I had mom to make me a fresh salad every day, the way she used to. I loved to put it right inside my baked potato, loaded with homemade ranch dressing. MMM...

And last, but not least, how can we have this conversation without remeniscing about the homemade bread that we ate every day. My favorite was when we would make it in those big yeast cans so that we could have "round" bread. Remember fighting over the crusts when the bread came out of the oven? They were so warm, crunchy and unbelievably deliceous slathered in butter...

Now, thinking real hard with your grown up minds, can you or I really say, "I grew up poor"?