I WAS BORN WITH A PLASTIC SPOON IN MY MOUTH

After my dad retired from the military, he took advantage of the GI bill and went to college...this was during the twilight of the nightmare that was Viet nam, and I got to meet people who were also taking advantage of the GI bill and went to school with my dad. The difference was they had been in the Nam, and they were damaged people. But they had service in common with my dad, and so they came to the house and hung out on the weekends, for BBQ and beer and tales of war and unrest. I was 12 years old.
There were the anti-war marches at UT my dad took me to, with his new found friends...I work there now, and every time we drive by the horse fountain I see the girl riding atop the tallest horse of the group, with her jeans bellbottomed with american flags and shooting the peace symbol. Right before the teargas and the running away. I remember howling at the ROTC cadets with my dad and his friends on the west mall...I can see this clearly in my mind every time we drive by the pavilion where they practiced formation.
We lived in a trailer...14x70, feet and my dad was a security guard at a local department store while he was in school. My mom was a nightwatch employee at a residential treatment center. We were poor in a district of rich motherfuckers...I went to school with kids of much higher station. Weed was the common demominator, it erased social boundaries. The rich kids wanted to be us and we wanted to be them and the weed blurred the lines effectively.
My dad had rotating hobbies...photography, guns and aquariums. His cameras and guns spent heavy rotation at the pawn shop during those days...the fish stayed, a whole wall of tanks...his babies. But the pawn shop was a kind of savings and loan for us during those days ( pawn shops carry a taste of shame for me even to this day ). It was lean.
In 1976, my parents bought a house, this house, in fact. My dad had given up on his degree and took a job with the state, having grown tired of the poverty and wanting something stable and a home. A home that was passed on to me...the ghosts are still here,too.
The ghosts of a struggle to get by...to be comfortable and assured. But it was a constant struggle against the current that led my parents to the world we experience today. A slow creeping slide into desperation. And by inheriting this house I have inherited that legacy.
Like my dad, I spent years in a job that provided a good living, since I left that work, it has been a roller coaster of occaisional wealth and damning poverty. My options are limited...some of it is a result of personal choices, some of it because of my age, some of it is due to the economy. But, like my parents, we carry on...we struggle. I'm tired of the struggle, but that's all there is.
I even went to a pawn shop the other day with some rings...I left with the rings and a bad taste in my mouth, I won't ever do that again.
Pawn shops are the department stores of broken dreams, and my dream isn't broken... yet.
Now, I'm not trying to be a crybaby. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I have a roof over my head, and food to eat and a job. That gives me a leg up on the increasing numbers of homeless people who have lost it all, who were once "middle class" and for reasons that probably escape even them are now living on the streets.
I'm almost 45 years old and I'm scared and on the edge...staring into the abyss of cardboard box housing and aluminum can collecting. One paycheck away from disaster.
But I'll press on...just like everyone else.