I can honestly say that I was born dirt poor. I was born in the Los Angeles general hospital in the year 1929; the start of the depression years. There aren't many around that can remember those years, where Americans actually stood in line for food. We patched our clothing, repaired our shoes and watermelons was a penny a pound.
My parents lived in a small studio apartment in Hollywood. Mother told me, years later, that they didn't expect me to live, worse they had little milk to feed me. My first bed was my father's suitcase; my second was a drawer in their dresser. My bed mattress was newspapers and my blankets were towels and whatever cloth they could get hold of. Note the photo above of my mother putting me to bed.
I grew up poor, like most of the kids in those depression years. My father, an artist, couldn't make money and my parents couldn't make a go of it so they divorced when I was about eight. Father left for San Francisco and we remained in Los Angeles.
With no income my mother, sister and I ended up on the State and Government Welfare. I remember those embarrassing days well. Second-hand clothing, few toys, small size meals. Most of the kids at school got a little bit of spending money each week. My sister and I had little to no spending money. In those days a dime was a dollar, so pennies had to do.
We couldn't pay rent, so we moved a lot and lived in many places in Los Angeles and San Francisco. I remember living in a garage at one point. That meant changing schools often, too often. Making friends than losing them. Summers were bare-feet time. No shoes time. Sidewalks weren't bad, but the streets were really hot!
In a sense for the past half-century I've been working in the same economic strata in which I lived. I can actually say I understand living in poverty. I remember what ‘poor' feels like. I remember a strong mother who made do with what she had and a father who felt guilty for being a poor father.
Born poor, dirt poor and I don't regret it.
Indeed God prepared me for my ministry.
