Like a good number of my contemporary "baby boomers"?ÿI always considered my childhood environs to have been "middle class".?ÿ I grew up in a house and I went to a public school.?ÿ Momma stayed at home and Pops worked.?ÿ I was raised with the belief that if I ever wanted anything more than my folks provided I?ÿhad to get it myself.?ÿ?ÿIt seems as though the?ÿwhole world was "middle class" back then.
The house where?ÿI grew up sat on the north half of a 330' by 330' acreage on a dirt road.?ÿ It wasn't until years later I learned how that location was so instrumental in shaping my life.
It seems as though that entire 2 1/2 acres (with the old house) had been drawn in on someone's map to be in a certain school district.?ÿ North of that property was a different school district.?ÿ When Pops bought the?ÿhouse and the north?ÿ1 1/4 acres?ÿafter the war the school district map was never upgraded to show the lot being split.?ÿ In 1947 when Momma tried to enroll My oldest brother Cole in school, the map only showed one property line, the old one.?ÿ Momma and?ÿher inexperience with a 1"=1320' tax assessor's map confused the line on the map with?ÿour fence to the south.?ÿ From that day forward we all went to a different school?ÿthan all our neighbors.?ÿ Such is life on the border.
Now the school district in which we actually lived wasn't a bad school at all.?ÿ All my cousins went there.?ÿ And if I had attended that school I would?ÿhave been alums with some notable people.?ÿ Writer and musician Mason "Classical Gas"?ÿWilliams graduated there.?ÿGuitarist Vince Gill?ÿthat shot to solo stardom up from his roots in a group named "The Amazing Rhythm Aces" also graduated from that school.?ÿ There were probably more famous folks that grew from those hallowed halls.?ÿ I do know of at least one more graduate that has made it to national notoriety, not as a musician but?ÿas a Senator from Massachusetts.?ÿ Her name was Liz, seated third from the left in this pic from her HS annual.
My brother Cole knew her older brothers from something we called MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship).?ÿ Cole says he remembers playing softball with one of them back in day.?ÿ And although Liz was about my age and I probably never met her (unless she bought gas at Bill's 66 where I tended pumps and washed windshields);?ÿ Liz was recently quoted as saying something that made me question my entire beliefs of my upbringing.?ÿ Liz said in an interview she grew up in Oklahoma City "on the ragged fringe of the middle class, scratching to hold on.." (or something like that).
Now I know where Liz grew up.?ÿ It's a wonderful house in what is still a fairly nice neighborhood.?ÿ My brother Holden was the paperboy there.?ÿ Some families there had more than one car...and all the streets and driveways were paved!?ÿ
I've been trying to make sense of someone?ÿthat grew up there thinking?ÿit was "the ragged fringe" of the middle class. Back in the day we thought this was a pretty spiffy 'hood.?ÿ Cole use to describe?ÿliving in a nice neighborhood like that as "trimmin' hedges and charcoalin' on Easy Street".?ÿ
As with everything in this life, things depend on your perspective.?ÿ Lord knows what Liz would have thought about her upbringing if she had ever helped Holden and me chase?ÿdown a chicken for Sunday dinner.?ÿ
?ÿ
My house looks vaguely like that but it's concrete block, built in 1935.
same idea, two wings, 12/12 pitch roof, 2nd story in the attic, commonly called 1-1/2 story back then.
We don't have the front porch.
"Ragged edge" -- like everything else -- is a relative concept, but from her Wikipedia page:
Warren lived in Norman until she was 11 years old, when the family moved to Oklahoma City.[7] When she was 12, her father, a salesman at Montgomery Ward,[7] had a heart attack, which led to many medical bills as well as a pay cut because he could not do his previous work.[4] Eventually, their car was repossessed because they failed to make loan payments. To help the family finances, her mother found work in the catalog order department at Sears.[4] When she was 13, Warren started waiting tables at her aunt's restaurant.
I grew up in what I considered a 1950s middle-class household with 3 kids.?ÿ We owned our house in a modest but safe neighborhood, I had a stay-at-home mom until I was in high school, and we never had anything repossessed.?ÿ I don't know if the Warrens were owners or renters, but it sounds like things got kind of shaky for them when Mr. Warren got sick.
Probably everyone's view is skewed by the size of their world at various ages. ?ÿA bit like Paden's experience, but out in the country, the property across the road from the north line of our property was in a different grade school district. ?ÿThose kids attended a school three miles from mine. ?ÿAnother family less than a mile away rode a bus to their parochial elementary rather than go less than a mile to my school. ?ÿA family about three miles south on our road attended a far larger school because that was in their district. ?ÿI barely knew any of those kids when I was a little kid.
Within three-quarters of a mile of our rural house was the school, the church, the grocery store, the barber shop, grain elevator and about 15 other kids of varying ages. ?ÿWithin three miles there was another grade school and the high school, three more churches, another grocery store, a cafe, three gas stations, a mechanic/welding shop, a lumber yard/hardware store, another barber shop, our post office, the local buyer of eggs, another grain elevator, a TV/radio sales & service shop and another 110 kids. ?ÿThat little world was plenty big.
When I hit high school the world expanded to include kids who lived up to 30 miles from me but excluded kids that lived as close as three miles from me.
Almost every family would have considered themselves to be middle class. ?ÿSome were poor, but not really all that much worse off. ?ÿThe ones who thought they were rich were spending resources from prior generations, not making big money on their own. ?ÿSingle parent households were very rare. ?ÿWelfare was something done somewhere else for really poor people. Almost all homes had a stay-at-home mom because she had plenty of work to do every day. ?ÿMuch of the nearby population rarely traveled more than 15 miles from home. ?ÿThey had no need to.
As with everything in this life, things depend on your perspective.?ÿ Lord knows what Liz would have thought about her upbringing if she had ever helped Holden and me chase?ÿdown a chicken for Sunday dinner.?ÿ
?ÿ
Speaking strictly in the economic sense here.....I'm not sure just where the "ragged edge of middle class" is, but if you are chasing dinner around the yard you may be just a tad below it.?ÿ
Speaking strictly in the economic sense here.....I'm not sure just where the "ragged edge of middle class" is, but if you are chasing dinner around the yard you may be just a tad below it.?ÿ
I love it.?ÿ You're probably spot on.?ÿ But speaking strictly in a psychological sense...chasing down your?ÿdinner behind the garage is a wonderful lesson for a child in effort/reward behavior conditioning!?ÿ
I suppose "middle class" is still just as elusive a term nowadays as it was back then.?ÿ Some see a glass as half full, some see it as half empty.?ÿ I grew up seeing the glass as something I needed to grab before my brothers snatched it up.
?ÿ
I don't think that you can project your experiences of growing up on another experience of a stranger just because of a shared geographic demographic. No matter how much her narrative doesn't correlate with your youthful memory. It is interesting that this person's journey?ÿ took her to the halls of the Capitol.?ÿ
The upbringing that I experienced was far from rural and what one considered suburban middle class as depicted in the Sixties.
More of a mix of middle and lower middle class of what would fall into a mix of business workers and working class. Blue and white collar, public service workers?ÿ and union workers etc.
As with everything in this life, things depend on your perspective.?ÿ Lord knows what Liz would have thought about her upbringing if she had ever helped Holden and me chase?ÿdown a chicken for Sunday dinner.?ÿ
?ÿ
Speaking strictly in the economic sense here.....I'm not sure just where the "ragged edge of middle class" is, but if you are chasing dinner around the yard you may be just a tad below it.?ÿ
As in lots of things it depends on perspective I guess.?ÿ The nearest grocery store was 15 miles away so we grew our own food.?ÿ Whether it be chicken, beef pork or vegetables we grew it.?ÿ I didn't realize that other folks didn't grow their own until I started school. My father did carry "groceries" to other folks, but that was because they were old, widowed, or disabled.?ÿ I can't think of anything we NEEDED that we didn't have so I guess we were middle class.
Andy
"I've been trying to make sense of someone?ÿthat grew up there thinking?ÿit was "the ragged fringe" of the middle class. Back in the day we thought this was a pretty spiffy 'hood.?ÿ Cole use to describe?ÿliving in a nice neighborhood like that as?ÿ"trimmin' hedges and charcoalin' on Easy Street". "
really, what do you expect from someone that claimed to be indian and it turned out she was 1/1500.
she suffers from the same delusions all politicians do
?ÿ
"As in lots of things it depends on perspective I guess.?ÿ The nearest grocery store was 15 miles away so we grew our own food.?ÿ Whether it be chicken, beef pork or vegetables we grew it.?ÿ I didn't realize that other folks didn't grow their own until I started school. My father did carry "groceries" to other folks, but that was because they were old, widowed, or disabled.?ÿ I can't think of anything we NEEDED that we didn't have so I guess we were middle class.
Andy"
There is a difference between living on a working farm, and taking your food off the land, and "chasing down?ÿa chicken for Sunday dinner".?ÿ Nevertheless, the comment was strictly tongue-in-cheek. And, for the record, it has become quite fashionable for people in urban Portland to raise chickens and goats, for food, on their half million dollar subdivision lots. How else can you be sure that your poultry is truly organic, and that your food had a happy life?
"Ragged edge" -- like everything else -- is a relative concept, but from her Wikipedia page:
Warren lived in Norman until she was 11 years old, when the family moved to Oklahoma City.[7] When she was 12, her father, a salesman at Montgomery Ward,[7] had a heart attack, which led to many medical bills as well as a pay cut because he could not do his previous work.[4] Eventually, their car was repossessed because they failed to make loan payments. To help the family finances, her mother found work in the catalog order department at Sears.[4] When she was 13, Warren started waiting tables at her aunt's restaurant.
I grew up in what I considered a 1950s middle-class household with 3 kids.?ÿ We owned our house in a modest but safe neighborhood, I had a stay-at-home mom until I was in high school, and we never had anything repossessed.?ÿ I don't know if the Warrens were owners or renters, but it sounds like things got kind of shaky for them when Mr. Warren got sick.
I would think that families that lived from paycheck to paycheck to pay bills such as mortgage, car, education and health?ÿ and insurance costs would be considered on the "ragged edge". It sounds like a euphemism
?ÿ
Paycheck? ?ÿWhat's a paycheck? The vast majority of the adults in my childhood neighborhood did not receive a paycheck.
Little independent enterprises all up and down the road. ?ÿA few locals worked for known wages, but they were the minority so far as family breadwinners would be identified. ?ÿA fairly common scenario for the farm-based family would include a mixed bag of income sources over a year's time. ?ÿIn addition to several different grain crops and hay might be beef cattle, some laying hens, some hogs and small scale dairy business. ?ÿThen, perhaps some sales of posts or firewood. ?ÿPerhaps doing some custom farm work for neighbors. ?ÿ Perhaps doing some welding or mechanic work for neighbors. ?ÿMaybe try some sales work on the side, such as Avon, Amway or hosting Tupperware and Stanley product parties in your home. ?ÿEven many of those living in the tiny towns had a mixed bag of income producing activities as there were few full time, well-paying jobs close to home. ?ÿMost businesses fit the mom and pop mold with few, if any, part time helpers outside the immediate family. ?ÿMany of those with something like a 40-hour job were in unskilled or low-skilled positions, so side income was crucial. ?ÿI'm not sure I could name anyone who had a definite annual salary with a definite paycheck of a certain amount that arrived on a set schedule.
The road to the poor house and the road to prosperity are drifting further and further apart; they have been for a century. It started out slow and built to the frenzy you see today...Guys like us are stuck in the middle and the gravitational pull is great from both ends.
A century ago you didn't need to spend money, there was nothing to buy and what was available was cheap. In 1972, my first real paying, minimum wage job was $1.72 an hour. They even took out for taxes and FICA! Fast forward to today and Minimum wage just went to 15 bucks an hour. There's so many different ways to spend money today; all you need is an app on your phone and anything will be delivered to your front door.
Growing up in the Midwest, in the 50's, 60's and 70's was certainly different, but the roads people went down were't that far apart...
?ÿ
There's so many different ways to spend money today;
That's certainly true.?ÿ Busy people eat more restaurant food instead of home cooking, and so spend more.?ÿ People generally live in larger houses than they did decades ago, with larger associated mortgate and utility costs.?ÿ Communications/entertainment is consuming a lot more money that it used to.?ÿ People tend to "need" the smart phone and internet and NetFlix and cable/satellite TV and that takes a significant percentage of your money if you don't have a lot.?ÿ People used to wear out their clothes.?ÿ Now wander through a Salvation Army or Goodwill store and see nearly new clothes going begging for a buyer.
You don't necessarily get rich by earning a lot of money.?ÿ You get rich by earning money and not spending it all.?ÿ And with more ways to spend it more people get poorer.
Like a good number of my contemporary "baby boomers"?ÿI always considered my childhood environs to have been "middle class".?ÿ I grew up in a house and I went to a public school.?ÿ Momma stayed at home and Pops worked.?ÿ I was raised with the belief that if I ever wanted anything more than my folks provided I?ÿhad to get it myself.?ÿ?ÿIt seems as though the?ÿwhole world was "middle class" back then.
The house where?ÿI grew up sat on the north half of a 330' by 330' acreage on a dirt road.?ÿ It wasn't until years later I learned how that location was so instrumental in shaping my life.
It seems as though that entire 2 1/2 acres (with the old house) had been drawn in on someone's map to be in a certain school district.?ÿ North of that property was a different school district.?ÿ When Pops bought the?ÿhouse and the north?ÿ1 1/4 acres?ÿafter the war the school district map was never upgraded to show the lot being split.?ÿ In 1947 when Momma tried to enroll My oldest brother Cole in school, the map only showed one property line, the old one.?ÿ Momma and?ÿher inexperience with a 1"=1320' tax assessor's map confused the line on the map with?ÿour fence to the south.?ÿ From that day forward we all went to a different school?ÿthan all our neighbors.?ÿ Such is life on the border.
Now the school district in which we actually lived wasn't a bad school at all.?ÿ All my cousins went there.?ÿ And if I had attended that school I would?ÿhave been alums with some notable people.?ÿ Writer and musician Mason "Classical Gas"?ÿWilliams graduated there.?ÿGuitarist Vince Gill?ÿthat shot to solo stardom up from his roots in a group named "The Amazing Rhythm Aces" also graduated from that school.?ÿ There were probably more famous folks that grew from those hallowed halls.?ÿ I do know of at least one more graduate that has made it to national notoriety, not as a musician but?ÿas a Senator from Massachusetts.?ÿ Her name was Liz, seated third from the left in this pic from her HS annual.
My brother Cole knew her older brothers from something we called MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship).?ÿ Cole says he remembers playing softball with one of them back in day.?ÿ And although Liz was about my age and I probably never met her (unless she bought gas at Bill's 66 where I tended pumps and washed windshields);?ÿ Liz was recently quoted as saying something that made me question my entire beliefs of my upbringing.?ÿ Liz said in an interview she grew up in Oklahoma City "on the ragged fringe of the middle class, scratching to hold on.." (or something like that).
Now I know where Liz grew up.?ÿ It's a wonderful house in what is still a fairly nice neighborhood.?ÿ My brother Holden was the paperboy there.?ÿ Some families there had more than one car...and all the streets and driveways were paved!?ÿ
I've been trying to make sense of someone?ÿthat grew up there thinking?ÿit was "the ragged fringe" of the middle class. Back in the day we thought this was a pretty spiffy 'hood.?ÿ Cole use to describe?ÿliving in a nice neighborhood like that as "trimmin' hedges and charcoalin' on Easy Street".?ÿ
As with everything in this life, things depend on your perspective.?ÿ Lord knows what Liz would have thought about her upbringing if she had ever helped Holden and me chase?ÿdown a chicken for Sunday dinner.?ÿ
?ÿ
Stick with your recollections and perceptions- I bet you have better than a 1: 1024 chance of being correct .....
The American political system is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wealthy interests but we are supposed to believe its agents came from difficult circumstances. It??s part of the mythology.
Paycheck? ?ÿWhat's a paycheck? The vast majority of the adults in my childhood neighborhood did not receive a paycheck.
Little independent enterprises all up and down the road. ?ÿA few locals worked for known wages, but they were the minority so far as family breadwinners would be identified. ?ÿA fairly common scenario for the farm-based family would include a mixed bag of income sources over a year's time. ?ÿIn addition to several different grain crops and hay might be beef cattle, some laying hens, some hogs and small scale dairy business. ?ÿThen, perhaps some sales of posts or firewood. ?ÿPerhaps doing some custom farm work for neighbors. ?ÿ Perhaps doing some welding or mechanic work for neighbors. ?ÿMaybe try some sales work on the side, such as Avon, Amway or hosting Tupperware and Stanley product parties in your home. ?ÿEven many of those living in the tiny towns had a mixed bag of income producing activities as there were few full time, well-paying jobs close to home. ?ÿMost businesses fit the mom and pop mold with few, if any, part time helpers outside the immediate family. ?ÿMany of those with something like a 40-hour job were in unskilled or low-skilled positions, so side income was crucial. ?ÿI'm not sure I could name anyone who had a definite annual salary with a definite paycheck of a certain amount that arrived on a set schedule.
The agricultural workforce likely was less than 10% of the nation's workforce and rapidly in decline in the Sixties. Family farms were in decline and undocumented immigrant labor was on the rise for the existing work. The last family farmer that I knew who made ends meet finally gave it up in the Eighties and went into custom home construction in the area since farm parcels were being subdivided into estate lots.
But even in the Sixties in rural areas there must have been salaried workers such as teachers, police, government, medical, sales etc. I?ÿknow?ÿ that it was in the Sixties that I noticed the rise of undocumented migrant farm workers then in the late 70s in the construction industry.
Paycheck? ?ÿWhat's a paycheck? The vast majority of the adults in my childhood neighborhood did not receive a paycheck.
Little independent enterprises all up and down the road. ?ÿA few locals worked for known wages, but they were the minority so far as family breadwinners would be identified. ?ÿA fairly common scenario for the farm-based family would include a mixed bag of income sources over a year's time. ?ÿIn addition to several different grain crops and hay might be beef cattle, some laying hens, some hogs and small scale dairy business. ?ÿThen, perhaps some sales of posts or firewood. ?ÿPerhaps doing some custom farm work for neighbors. ?ÿ Perhaps doing some welding or mechanic work for neighbors. ?ÿMaybe try some sales work on the side, such as Avon, Amway or hosting Tupperware and Stanley product parties in your home. ?ÿEven many of those living in the tiny towns had a mixed bag of income producing activities as there were few full time, well-paying jobs close to home. ?ÿMost businesses fit the mom and pop mold with few, if any, part time helpers outside the immediate family. ?ÿMany of those with something like a 40-hour job were in unskilled or low-skilled positions, so side income was crucial. ?ÿI'm not sure I could name anyone who had a definite annual salary with a definite paycheck of a certain amount that arrived on a set schedule.
I'm going to venture to?ÿ say the cow is not too far from this himself.?ÿ
There was a portion of the 60's that had a migrant worker program. Not sure if it was administered by the state or federal govt but (to the best of my memory) they were allowed to stay 6 months, no more. The farmer had to provide housing and that was inspected to ensure it met minimum standards. The family never came up with the worker. I was just a kid and don't remember much of it, my Mother was talking about it just a month ago. My Dad was farming cotton in West Texas then.
James
@Alan Roberts
Sure, those jobs existed. ?ÿAlmost none of those people lived in our community. ?ÿLaw enforcement in the rural area was the Sheriff and Under Sheriff who were based over ten miles from our home. ?ÿThe same held for the doctors and nurses (two of each nearly 15 miles distant). ?ÿThe high school had a total of four teachers of which two were local farm wives. ?ÿOne grade school had three teachers and the other had two. ?ÿAll but one of those lived at least ten miles from their classroom. ?ÿGovernment employees lived near their offices, 10 to 20 miles distant.
We had a handful of railroad employees drawing a paycheck for track labor. ?ÿThe post office had two employees. ?ÿA few locals drove 20 miles to a factory type job but I only remember line workers.
Everyone's view of the world revolves around their own experiences. ?ÿAs the breadth of those experiences expand, so does their view.
