I know some people that I consider to be poor. Poor financially, but usually rich in other areas. Areas that a millionaire would never consider as a source of wealth. In my youth, in the small Oklahoma town of Wann, my family was near the bottom of the financial scale.
Our neighbors, and I use that term loosely because they lived about a half mile away, lived on public assistance, aka Welfare. Despite their financial status, they always wore better clothes than we did. Our father worked and would never consider applying for Welfare. Their father was disabled, so apparently they had no other options.
My siblings and I would walk the mile to school, with the neighbor kids. We were aware that they wore new shoes on the first day of school, but we were not jealous or spiteful. In fact, we really didn't make anything of it. They were our neighbors and our friends.
One of my classmates came back to school, after the Christmas break, carrying his new 20 gauge shotgun for show & tell. I went home, after school, and asked my Mom if I could have a shotgun. She said, "When you work and save enough money, I think that would be fine." I never mentioned it again until I had done just as Mom had said. That philosophy has stayed with me for all these years. I guess I was poor, but who knew? I had more love and support than 99% of the other kids and with nearly 50 cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents all within a 20 minute trip, I was a millionaire in many areas. Who knew a kid could be so rich?
