Growing up Poor but Happy

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Written by Jimmie Burroughs Email this article to a friend

I grew up very poor but did not know it at the time because everyone who lived around me was poor also. There was no TV, so I was ignorant of how the rich lived. Neither did I know a rich person until I was grown. My parents moved into a 3-room bungalow when I was five years old, an old farmhouse that had been taken into the city limits. It still had a large old barn with a hayloft. The street was dirt, and in the summer when it was dry, there was about a half inch of dust built up. I can still imagine the dust squishing between my toes as I walked down the street; it felt so good.

Dad paid $7 a month rent. That was not bad since a day’s wages was around $5. There were no utilities, no running water or electricity. There was a deep well out back with a long cylinder and a rope to lower into the well for water. Inside there was a living room that served also as a bedroom, with a bed and a potbellied stove, and a battery operated radio that dad used to listen to the Amos and Andy show, and the Lone Ranger, and maybe the Green Hornet. There were also three or four cane back chairs and an oil lamp. The floors, walls and ceiling were all made of center match wooden boards. There was also badly worn linoleum on the floor with chunks missing around the edge. The best I can remember, the walls were grungy and had never been painted. Mom was a good housekeeper, and there was never any junk lying around. Dad kept the yard the same way.

The kitchen was furnished with a cabinet like the ones you see in antique stores today with the flour bin and a small storage place for pots and pans and a few groceries. The coal oil cooking stove blew up occasionally and kept a large black spot on the ceiling. The remaining furniture was a table with four chairs. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the icebox was on the back porch where the iceman could easily keep it stocked with ice during summer months. In wintertime dad had a wooden box attached to the outside of the kitchen window; the window could be raised, and food stored there. In the bedroom, there was a bedside table with an oil lamp, and a chest of drawers. I do not believe any of the doors had locks, if so, they were never used and I cannot remember ever seeing a door key. Important to mention also is that there was an outhouse inside the barn, a one hole; we did have some class. There was also a sears catalogue, and it was not for reading.

I’m sure it sounds weird to you the way we lived back then compared to how we now live, but there couldn’t have been a happier little boy growing up than I. I loved living there. I had the four large oak trees with the toe sack, bag swing and a lot of shade to play under. The house was high enough to crawl under, sit down, dig holes, and make little lakes, streams, and roads for little wooden play cars. There was a creek nearby for fishing, and the old swimming hole where I learned to swim. And the barn, what a great place for corncob fights with the neighborhood kids, and there was always plenty of ammunition. Dad always kept the barn well stocked with hay to feed the cattle he pastured on a farm just a block down the street. The bales of hay in the loft were great for building  hideouts.

When I was older, dad would give me a quarter on Saturday to go to a movie, which was always westerns: Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, or Lash Laure. There was also enough change left over from the quarter for a soft drink and a bag of popcorn. The word bored was not in my vocabulary, and until this day, I still do not use it.

What a different world we live in today where kids just exercise their thumbs testing and sit around the house eating snacks, playing video games and complaining about being bored.

Baths were not all that frequent in those days, but occasionally the #3 washtub was set out in the summer sun to warm water for a bath. During the winter, the water was warmed on the potbelly stove. I do not remember how often we bathed, but it must not have been more than once a week. I do remember mom giving me a sponge bath out of a wash pan at the end of the day before bedtime.

When I was twelve, dad bought me a new bicycle. It cost $65, a lot of money in those days, and was the prettiest bike I had ever seen and by far the greatest thing I had ever owned. $65 in those days was more than a week’s wages. No one in my neighborhood had a bike like that one. I have never been prouder of anything than I was that bike, not even my first new convertible.

Those were some of the happiest years of my life, only a few toys, not even a telephone and of course no TV. My dad did not even own a car until I was a teenager.

People ate healthier in those days. During the summer, it was mostly garden vegetables, and in winter, it was beans and potatoes and cornbread, and sometimes-wild meat dad hunted or chicken, which he raised. There was an occasional blackberry cobbler made from wild blackberries that grew in the woods nearby or from due berries that grew along the railroad tracks.

The house I described above was a wonderful place to live with the barn to play in and large trees in the yard for shade. It was less than 500 square feet in size and those days would probably have sold for only a few hundred dollars. I do not think at that time in my life the kind of house I lived in would have made much difference. In fact, I do not think it has ever made much difference. I have lived in small houses and large ones and cannot say it ever mattered much which it was.

A couple of years ago the largest house in the world was completed at the cost of one billion dollars. It is 27 stories tall and is 392,000 square feet. Ironically, it is in India where one third of the poorest people in the world live and starvation is pandemic. I wonder how a little boy would feel living in a house like that where he could get lost and not found for days, and no dirt to play in, or toe sack swing. Wow! It must be awful boring.

Every story should make a point. The point of this story is not not that being poor makes a person happy, nor does being rich make a person happy. Happiness goes beyond the material things of life. I have tried to analyze my own life to determine what made me happy during the happiest times and have discovered that it was not because of the house I lived in or the things I owned but rather my attitude toward life. It was those times that I had the greatest passion for living and enjoyed doing the things I did.  

It is now a new day, and I have resumed my writing. My subconscious mind must have worked on the topic all night because it was on my mind when I awoke this morning. Here’s what I’ve determined: I think it is first the relationships in life, and second the things we do, and third the people we are around that promotes happiness or takes away from it. I read yesterday, “You are as happy as you choose to be.” I think a better way of saying it would be, “You are as happy as the choices you make.” I chose to have a relationship with God; I chose to have a mate that I could be happy with; I choose to do things that make me happy; I choose to be around people that I enjoy. The times in my life that I was unhappy were the times I was doing something that didn’t make me happy and was around people who seemed to make it their purpose in life to try and make me as miserable as they.

Sometimes all it takes to spoil your happiness is an arrogant and hateful boss, or a mean and unpleasant person that you must constantly have deal with. In my lifetime, I have dealt with both, but not ever again. If you find yourself in that kind of circumstance, there is only one solution, and that is to move on to a new job (Preferably become your own boss as I did) or remove yourself from the presence of people who are difficult people to be around, which I did, and I do. Therefore, to reiterate, happiness is an attitude enhanced by the relationships you have, the things you do, and the people with whom you spend your time.

About the author: Jimmie Burroughs is a motivational speaker and author who has been involved in teaching Christian Personal Development for more than 30 years. There are hundreds of articles to help you on this website (Website Contents) in your personal growth.

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