The Title

     My parents raised 5 kids through some tough times.  The 1970's recessions, gas shortages, the Cold War, etc.  Usually mom took a job as a bookkeeper of some sort and dad always worked blue-collar jobs to make ends meet.  He worked in lumber yards and oil refineries.  He repaired organs, not the human kind.  The one big chance he took was throwing everything he had into a Porsche/Volkswagen repair garage with my uncle.  It turned out my uncle was a bit of a scheister and took my dad to the cleaners financially.
     As a kid, I lived in 12 different houses by the time I graduated high school.  I went to 5 different elementary schools alone.  Through all of this there were times when we received small amounts of government assistance for brief periods such as food stamps and the items that make the title of this blog.  All 5 of us children never knew how close we were to poverty because mom and dad always made sure our needs were met, our clothes clean, and our hair combed.  I take great pride in my family and childhood and, in my teen years, started to realize how different and special my upbringing was as I was surrounded by middle to upper-middle class friends who had lived in one house their whole life.  How boring!  I have had just about every culture or race as a neighbor at some point in my life.  As a kid, I watched Telemundo with my friend Ernesto and pretended I knew when to laugh.  I watched with curiosity as an african-american neighbor swam in his pool with a shower cap on.  I have eaten, played, and sometimes fought with people from every level of society.  I don't think too many people can say that.  I cannot imagine how stressful it was for my parents to constantly look for steady, good-paying work.  Really, the only time I remember lamenting our plight was seeing my mom cry when she could not afford basketball shoes for one of my brothers.  That stung.
     Which leads me to a story...When I was in high school, I had my shoes stolen from my locker in 9th grade.  Nike Air Force 3's.  I was angry for weeks, I left an angry note on my locker for the perp.  I stared unblinkingly at people's feet in the hallway between classes.  My friends wanted me to just let it go, but those shoes were one thing I had that made me just as good as my more well-to-do teammates, and bam, stolen my some punk.            If there were some way of finding out who that thief was today, I think I would pay him a visit, explain the situation, bid him farewell, and then turn and pivot and punch him in the mouth like my dad probably should have done to my uncle way back in 1980.