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Oldgringo wrote: I ain't really got a whole lot of sympathy for today's whiners. Never had any use for losers...

george wrote: Looking back, what other people perceive as the hard times, really were the best times.

Amen! I didn't realize my family had been poor until I was 30ish. But looking back I think I should have been clued in when there were 4 kids and 2 matchbox cars to play with in the dirt roadways we built. The 2 that didn't get cars used rocks to "drive". We would play for hours in the dirt.

Sorry off topic...moving along now...

At 14 I started working for my Dad in his machine shop. I was in charge of the packaging area for our government contracts (me and my sister until she got fired, LOL). I learned at an early age how insane our govt can be and why products purchased from contractors were so ridiculously high. I was paid by the piece and my first paycheck was $16 and I rushed off to the store to spend all but $1 of it on a transistor radio with black alligator looking covering. I worked very hard because I didn't want the other employees thinking that the boss's daughter got preferential treatment, not to mention my dad was harder on me than the rest of his employees. This prepared me and has served me well in my career.

Within a year I was running the lathe and drill press...by then making all of $2 an hour. I wasn't aware of the laws then and I wonder what the lawmakers would have thought of the 6 months I went home for dinner and would come back and work until 9 or 10 pm for free because of the financial difficulties the business was going through. My dad did not ask us to work for free...my brother and I volunteered once we found out he was going to put in those extra hours himself. I hated going to school the next day finding aluminum shavings in my hair from sanding burrs off the parts. And I didn't think my hands would ever come clean! Knowing what I know now...I'd do it all over again. We had fun there.