Need a Good Used Car?

"I was raised a poor black child."  Not really.  That's just one of my favorite lines from Steve Martin's movie, The Jerk.  We were poor, but we didn't know it.  We had some neighbors that were on the 1960's version of Welfare, and they usually had better clothes and shoes than we did.  It didn't seem to matter to us, since most of the kids in our school dressed about the same way.  We got one pair of shoes per year, and those were usually work boots that could serve double duty.  We wore them when we worked around the farm, polished them up, and then wore them to school.

I think the only time I thought my family was poor was the year that Johnny Mackie got the 20 gauge shotgun for his birthday.  We were in the 5th grade at the time.  Other than that, I always felt like we had enough, and that's all one really needs.  More than enough is the same as too much.

My dad worked for Barlow Lumber Company for part of my life, and that job must not have paid well enough to get us by.  To keep us in dependable transportation, he would purchase a used car that needed a little work, fix it up and then sell it, or attempt to trade for something a little better.  He traded cars so many times one year that the Oklahoma Tax Commission sent him a letter to let him know that if he kept up the pace, he would have to get a used car dealers license.  He just kept on trading cars and pickups until he got the job at the rock quarry.