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07-20-2015 10:12 PM
@NoelSeven wrote:We can educate the kids, make sure they have a decent meal, check their eyes and teeth, provide vaccinations and just show the kids that there are other possibilibities for their lives.
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I agree with you, tansy. The younger generation is always the hope for the future.
while you're educating the kids, and making sure they have a meal and their teeth are okay.......ya might want to think how you're going to help them when they aren't kids anymore........we need to bring in viable employment.........to show kids the "there are other possibilities for their life" and not provide a way for them to attain those possibilities, is exactly why the people there hold flat landers suspect........it's the dangling carrot, they can never have............................................raven
07-20-2015 10:16 PM
@NoelSeven wrote:We can educate the kids, make sure they have a decent meal, check their eyes and teeth, provide vaccinations and just show the kids that there are other possibilibities for their lives.
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I agree with you, tansy. The younger generation is always the hope for the future.
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I agree with you both. It really is a sad situation when we help other countries and can't help our own.
I will say that Loves Roses has a point, in that the help has to be accepted, and it's not always.
Another thing I wonder is how much of it is genetic. These families have been living there for generations. Some of it would have to be.
07-20-2015 10:20 PM
07-20-2015 10:29 PM
07-20-2015 10:55 PM - edited 07-20-2015 10:57 PM
I come from “good stock.” These are my childhood memories from Summertime vacations at Grandma’s in the mountains of EasternTennessee:
They were poor as church mice, maybe poorer, 'cause church mice eat 'regular'. They had no running water–had to haul it by the buckets from a spring a mile away, deep into the woods. It was the coldest, cleanest, sweetest water I’ve ever tasted. There was also a well behind the house from which they drew bucketsful. That water was full of iron, didn’t taste nearly as good, but it was lots more convenient. Either way, if you went for a drink at night, you had to be mindful to check for spiders, or worse yet, scorpions, in your tin ladle of water drawn out of a bucket out on the back porch. There was no indoor plumbing– I hated that outhouse and therefore frequently opted to pee in the bushes. There was a cast iron cookstove in the kitchen and the house was heated by a big fireplace in the living room–as a child, I thought carrying in firewood was great fun. Our beds were huge feather beds. You’d sink deeply into them, and be nearly enveloped by the mattress. We were kept warm by the quilts hand stitched by Grandma.
I’ve watched my grandmother plow the fields behind a workhorse. I’ve collected eggs from underneath hens in a hot, dark, stinky and scarey henhouse. I’ve even walked the many miles into ‘town’ to work with my grandmother cleaning offices for a few dollars. As a child, I thought it was a special privilege to be thought big enough to work alongside my Grandma.
You see, I come from hard-working people. Poor? You betcha! But they were proud people and instilled with the work ethic that built this country. Their shirts and pants might have been mended and patched, but they were never dirty, other than from that day’s toil. They stood tall and strong, heads held high with a dignity that comes from a life filled with good choices.
They spent what money they had very carefully. No person in my family frittered away hard-earned money on things like cigarettes or alcohol. Even if they wanted to, the walk to the store was too far to go fetch ‘em. They didn’t have cars, either. My people walked everywhere they went.
My mother was raised in this lifestyle, and spent her youth absolutely convinced there was an easier life for her, "out there somewhere." The day after she graduated high school, she boarded a Greyhound bus and headed to the closest big city she knew of. She never turned back, and through sheer determination formed a life for herself.
Because of her steely fortitude, I grew up never knowing what being poor actually meant. Because of her gumption and backbone, I've never been hungry a day in my life.
I tell you all this because I have little patience or empathy when I hear about how downtrodden poor people are. Life is hard, and, yes, life is harder without money. However, I also am fully aware how rich and rewarding, not to mention healthy, a life filled with hard work and meager means can be.
Rich or poor, life is what you make it.
Edited because I found a typo. They bug.
07-20-2015 11:13 PM
07-20-2015 11:16 PM
07-20-2015 11:31 PM
@NoelSeven wrote:
We cannot assume the poor in Appalachia are not hard working. And I disagree that life is what you make it, that is not true for everyone obviously.
I've known many hard working poor people, and I've known wealthy people that were lazy and living off their parents or inheritance.
Nowhere in my story did I say or imply the poor in Appalachia are not hard working. Also, nowhere did I say poor or rich are any happier than the other. That, in fact, is my point. Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but poor people can be as happy, sometimes happier, than wealthy folks.
Happiness is not about what happens in your life, but, rather, how you deal with what the circumstances you have.
07-20-2015 11:38 PM
07-20-2015 11:39 PM
@NoelSeven wrote:
MrsG, I didn't say anything about being happy.
I did.
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