re: Food and activities us OT Poors had growing up

I love fried and smothered liver to this day.

Walking into the house after a long day of being outside, very hungry..coming and smelling liver, onions and potatoes is a huge comfort of nostalgia for me.

I remember lots of grilled cheese and cut up hot dogs as a kid


No cable tv until I was about 9 years old. Prior was 3 channels and huge antenna on roof that dad had to adjust constantly

I remember dad bought a brand new ext cab 1500 Chevy, base model stick shift and was so proud of it. Mom backed her ford thunderbird into it on accident in the driveway, bending the bumper. I thought he might kick her to the curb that day

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cheese toast (is this still a thing?) my mom would put a slice of american cheese on a piece of bread and stick it in the oven until the cheese had burned spots on it

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Same boat. My mom would jazz it up sometimes with a few diced onions or tomatoes. But its one of the things i remember fondly from my childhood. However; anytime i mention cheese toast around friends they look at me like i grew a third head

When I was a kid, we had remote farms that were as far away as 20 miles from the home farm.

I'd be over there spraying or plowing cotton or whatever, and dad would call on the radio to tell me he was bringing lunch. My mind would goto BBQ or fried chicken, since he had to drive past a couple great places on the way.

He'd arrive... and hand me a coke, a sticky bun, potted meat, and crackers. LOL. And I am dead serious.

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my dad was a lineman. his dad was a lineman. i don't think he knew anything else. i have nothing but respect for what he was trying to do. to my knowledge he never bought a single shirt or pair of pants for himself ever. i remember helping my mom with the wash at that point it was obvious how threadbare all his clothes were.

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Some people recoil at stories like this.

I didn’t grow up poor. I grew up rural and comfortable enough. And you know what? I learned how to do shite.

I can fix my own car if needed. I can restore a car if I want to. I can paint. I can diagnose and fix my own A/C unit and replace that run capacitor that usually blows on Saturday night-Sunday morning. I can fix my yard equipment if needed. I can fix anything in the house. I can grow food. I can hunt food. I can cook my own food. I can tell approximately what timber is worth. I can drive a tractor. I can fix a tractor. I can raise cattle. I can ride horses. I can shoot accurately. I can swim like a dolphin. I can run a chainsaw, bandsaw, skillsaw, chopsaw, cross cut saw, hacksaw, and hand saw. I can weld. I can pour concrete. I can run a backhoe, trackhoe, garden hoe, and excavator. And 10 times that I am not thinking of. In other words, I learned how to be a man. Not to call some guy to change a tire for me.

And that’s before I went to high school and MSU.

And I look back fondly at every bit of it. Absolutely wish I could spend another one of those summers like I did and with who I did in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

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only argument my mom ever won with my dad was when he was FURIOUS at our 'waste' of toliet paper. he said we only needed TWO SQUARES and this debate raged for a year until my mom finally won this one. (thanks mom)

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our laundry costs woulda doubled

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shite.....just last Saturday I spent half a day cooking fresh green beans with new potatoes cut up in them (never taste like my grandmother's)

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Did you cook them in a Magnalite pot? Because my MeMe made the world's best green beans and it was in a Magnalite pot.

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thrift store was next to eastgate

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there was Eastgate and another. One we went to. One we rarely went to.

I don’t know why, they were less than a mile apart

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is cinnamon toast poor?

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I didn't grow up poor and we ate cinnamon toast a lot on the way out the door for school... It's frickin delicious