We were so poor growing up we....

[stxrus]

@getbent - in Illinois, the govt. cheese was a 10lb. brick. A friend’s family had 7 kids so the qualified for assistance and amassed a huge strategic cheese reserve. Tasty stuff, especially in a grilled cheese or mac+cheese. No idea who made it.

A friend’s grandmother got “commodities” when I lived in Meridian
She got cheese and peanut butter. Go figure. The group I ran around with pooled our money and bought the cheese & peanut butter from her. I think it was about $8.00 a month. She could use the money and us kids shared a brick of cheddar (probably close to 10 pounds) and a 5 pound can of peanut butter.

Dickey’s mom aggreed to store our larder and would make grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwiches for us. During the holidays she would make peanut butter cookies.

Great memories. Granny Entrekin was a sweetheart that passed in 1968. She may have had little money but she was proud and strong.

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

It took a multi-generation household to get by. Air conditioning was sleeping on the basement floor on hot summer nights. The upper floor was rented out. But my parents were tenacious and hard working, so things improved. I consider myself fortunate.

 

[tery]

That cheese was very good.

One year they had a surplus in Minnesota and gave away 5 pounds to anybody who would come in to pick it up - man it was good!

 

[telekaster1999]

yep. I have seen it. but it wasn't the only thing you could get (at least in Ky) that was the stuff that everyone laughed about 'plugging you up tight as a drum' but it was really good too...

Aka "hoop cheese" around here. Just about any country store round here has it. You can get $1 worth of hoop cheese, a can of pork and beans and a small pack of saltines and have yourself a classic "pulpwood lunch"

 

[FenderGyrl]

We were so poor in West Virginia that we used to catch birds to make Sunday Dinner.

Wooden Frame with Chicken Wire covering it. Prop it up on a stick with a loooong string attached to it. Throw stale bread under the screen. Hide behind a tree waiting for few birds to enter the trap. Pull the string. Dinner. For real...
FG

 

[daddyplaysbass]

Even the sunsets were black and white !

 

[Boreas]

We used to live in a cardboard box in the middle of the road. (Python skit, IIRC).

 

[teletimetx]

You had a shoe?!

when grandma found out where we got it, we had to take it back to the bowling alley...

 

[Toto'sDad]

That pork that came in the silver-colored cans from the commodity store was good stuff.

 

[scrapyardblue]

We were so poor in West Virginia that we used to catch birds to make Sunday Dinner.

Wooden Frame with Chicken Wire covering it. Prop it up on a stick with a loooong string attached to it. Throw stale bread under the screen. Hide behind a tree waiting for few birds to enter the trap. Pull the string. Dinner. For real...
FG

You had bread too? Rich folk.

 

[Buck Lightyear]

We drank 6up

We wanted candy, they gave us Ms

The alphabet soup didn’t contain vowels, cuz you had to buy a vowel

 

[memorex]

I came home from school one day, and my family had moved.

 

[Harmonic]

Someone said to me that growing up they were poor as dirt. I replied, "Dirt! You lived in the rich neighborhood! All we had was a hole!"

 

[tery]

I thought the wrong side of the tracks was uptown.

 

[Jon S.]

when grandma found out where we got it, we had to take it back to the bowling alley...

You had feet?!

 

[Texicaster]

I thought of this!

 

[Kandinskyesque]

My mother would send us out into the back yard for a shower when it was raining.

 

[chezdeluxe]

We were so poor our Christmas stockings were hung upside down.

 

[Jon S.]

We were so poor our Christmas stockings were hung upside down.

We hung ours upside up so we could get some coal to heat the house.

 

[chezdeluxe]

We were so poor we used to gatecrash the Orphans Picnic