20151114 (life events)

Got my fear of poverty one morning

In summer 1948 often when I was sick

My mom brought me to her and my

Dad’s bedroom just off the kitchen

So she could tend me and be close

To her ironing occasionally a neighbor

Lady from across the street would

Come by for coffee and they’d chat

This time my mother was sobbing

I don’t know what we’ll do how

Can we live it’s less than half

What he was making more sobbing

Come on Mary you’re good people

You’ll have to cut back make

Things stretch this happens to

Lots of us you’ll all be ok

Takes adjusting I had no idea 

What had happened only years 

Later did I grasp their internal

Dynamic what caused so much

Dissension arguments unhappiness

But I didn’t connect this particular

Memory to other parts of the 

Picture till I was married with

Kids of my own after working as

A youth manager of one of the

Corner groceries that abounded in

The pedestrian dependent old

Neighborhoods larger stores opened

Killed off corner groceries since

People were able to use their cars

To go shopping preferred the variety 

Larger store offered this was in 

The mid ‘thirties still in the 

Throes of depression men unable

To find work left home road the 

Rails in disgrace sent money 

Home if they could my father 

Who had no machine training

Got a job in a factory making auto

Motor valves stable enough to let

Him marry buy a home start 

A family my brother first then four

Year came my sister I two years

Later all this time he was rising

With the company as it burgeoned

To produce valves other parts for 

Airplane engines with war demand

War ended orders cut back ferociously 

But the prospect of auto engines 

Galore promised prosperity beyond 

Imagining that’s when he had 

What they called at that time a

Nervous breakdown quickly he

Fell off the management ladder

That’s why my mom cried about 

His earning less than half her

Terror of depression era poverty

Returned with a vengeance they

Would never explain it to us

Never told us their fear we’d have to

Quit school go to work though my

Mom insisted we have a little 

Something for Saturdays

Meaning jobs we could keep 

What we earned things got

Better still my dad periodically

Left for rest or the hospital for

ECT they scrimped the whole of 

Their lives to see my brother me

Through college left us each 

An inheritance

c. J.S.Manista, 2015