Are we Poor. A portion of a short story. The language is English

Gregory Hathaway

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Audiobooks

Description

A sample from the short story collection of Jackie Brisendine. Narrated as Jackie remembered things growing up.

Vocal Characteristics

Language

English

Voice Age

Senior (55+)

Accents

North American (General)

Transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
Are you poor? A short story by Jackie Brizendine narrated by Gregory Hathaway, 1947. As far back as I can remember. I've always wondered what it would be like to be poor as years went by and I became more and more prosperous and acquired the many luxuries that I thought only the rich possessed. I began to think if maybe I'd been poor earlier in my life. I can never remember a time when I considered myself as being poor, although many who had more than I probably thought otherwise. Very few people believe me when I tell them that I can remember as far back in life as the age of three years, I can actually remember crawling around on my knees before learning to walk. My father had just been discharged from the army following World War Two and returned like many others, no place to live and no job. We crowded into an old farmhouse, sort of out in the country with my uncle and grandparents until my dad found a job after finding a job in a factory in Chattanooga Tennessee, it was time to find a place to live with all the soldiers returning home from war housing had not caught up with the demand like I said, I can remember back that far, but I must have been around four when we moved into a rundown old house had been converted into a duplex of sorts. The place resembled the front of the bates motel from the movie cycle, but with only two units are side of the house, had only one large room and a smaller room that my mother used as a kitchen. I remember that she used a little green portable gas burner that I later learned was a Coleman camping stove. The place had no running water and no bathroom. I remember my mom walking me down the road carrying a bucket of water in one hand and holding on to me with the other to draw water from a well in the neighbor's front yard. I can still see her stopping to change hands with the bucket on the way back. I'm sure that I was around four years old then, but I begged her to let me carry the bucket for ignoring my pleas as long as she could. She sat the bucket on the ground and told me go ahead and carry as you probably guessed I couldn't lift the bucket off the ground. She didn't have to listen to me cry about carrying it anymore. We had no bathroom, but we shared an outhouse out back with an old lady who lived in the other side of the duplex. For those people never had the opportunity to experienced using an outdoor toilet. You certainly missed out on something unique in life. I never used that old outhouse though. I still use my baby potty, thank goodness You probably ask what about bathing on saturday. My father would go draw extra water from the well down the street and we had wheels now a surplus army jeep and they would bring in the old washtub from the back porch. Mom would heat some water on the little green stone.