Government Cheese

Before my parents were divorced, we were very probably still poor. My Dad worked shitty jobs, and usually had two of them. He worked his whole life till his body gave out and he finally retired. My teenaged Daughter was taller than him, because of the back surgeries he had, and how much height he had lost. My Dad was never a slacker, he just couldn't catch a break with a decent job.

After they were divorced, we were very definitely poor. Back then, the common response to some people never getting welfare and some other people getting it in perpetuity was that 'their tan wasn't dark enough...' Sorry, but that was what people would say. It was a different world back then.

There was a Native American Cultural Center not far from where we lived, in a shitty little house, that had a furnace that was actually located in the dining room. I slept in the laundry room, with all of the mice. That Native American place had somehow gotten a truckload of 'free cheese' that the news got out about it. There were long lines, and my Mother stood in one of those lines and came home with a five pound block of cheese. It wasn't sliced, it came in the box you see at the top of this post. I remember thinking 'this cheese is so bad, they didn't even slice it.'

But the truth was, it made the best grilled sandwiches I've ever had in my life. I've never been a big fan of tomato soup, but even that soup tasted great when paired with a grilled cheese sandwich made with this stuff.

In my memory, I think this was the only time in our lives that we got something free from the government. I don't ever recall us getting food stamps, or any kind of welfare. I remember one time as a teenager, I sold something, and had like $15 or $20 and planning on buying something I had wanted for a long time. My Mom came in the room and said 'We're calling churches to see if they had food pantries.'

I gave her the money, and they bought food with it. I never let that go. I was a kid, and I felt like I had done nothing to create this horrible situation. My brother came home from the next door neighbors house one day, and he was crying his eyes out. I figured some kid had bullied him or something, and so I was pressing him 'What happened? Did someone hit you? Did someone bully you?' This had happened in the past, and as the big brother, it was on me to hand out attitude adjustments.

He shook his head, and burst out crying again, My mother finally got him to explain. the neighbors had pork chops for dinner and they asked if he wanted some. he felt so bad, after having had a good dinner, that he felt guilty about it, and came home in tears.

Think about that.

That actually happened.

For the longest time, I told myself that I would make my own mistakes, but that I'd never make the kind of mistakes that I had to endure, as a kid. I chased money, and better and better jobs. I bought a new vehicle, something that never happened in my family as a kid. At one point, as an adult, my mother told me that she had seen an advertisement in the newspaper, that new 'Yugos' could be bought for $5000

That was the only new car my mother had ever bought in her entire life.

A $5000 Yugo.

She took such good care of it, that she drove it for more than 100,000 miles, it was the war in what was then called Yugoslavia, that had halted the export of parts for those cars. It was eventually junked because parts became almost impossible to get for them.

I've watched all of this conflict with SNAP benefits supposedly being halted because of the political nonsense, and it's hard for me to have any sympathy. It's not a Black, White, or Other issue. It's a systemic problem with the perpetual welfare class in this country. We can't just end these benefits, but we have to have reform. You cannot create a healthy environment when kids only know that they never have to work, to get ahead.

I worked my literal ass off to get ahead, and all it took was being poor as a kid to teach me that lesson.

I don't have my shit together, and I never have. I'm the product of too much dysfunction, but at the very least, I can say that the government has never fed me, paid my bills, or sent me checks.

We're supposed to be the greatest country in the world. I think we should act like it.