Very good thread
I was born at an Airforce base NC, Dad was in Vietnam and we lived in a tobacco field...
When Dad got out out he was mentally damaged by the war and my parents divorced after having 4 kids...
Dad never had any kind of real job after the war and pretty much was a ward of the state...
Mom and my Grandma raised 4 kids on her small income working in the meat department at a grocery store...
Mom made our clothes herself and we got by barely...
Then she met and married a local Cop and life got much better...
Their retired and doing fine these days, not rich but living comfortably...
Grandma was never anywhere close to rich but she made it 93.
I cant even count her offspring, but family was there for her until the end...
Personally I believe in Karma, a lot of the poor people I've known were bad people
They have bad luck because they get what's coming to them
I quit school at 17 and if you would have told me Id be where I am now then I wouldn't have believed it
I guess I got lucky when I got a job at the steel forge making $7.50 an hour back in 1990...
The company had just started an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan)...
It truelly was a good deal, you get a stake in the company and work hard, the company does good you do too...
I worked VERY hard and me and the company did very well
Things could have turned out much different for me If Id have kept on trying to be an auto mechanic
So I guess being in the right place at the right time (luck) had some to do with my success...
But my two brothers and my sister are doing very well for themselves also.
I am also the oldest one.
I will credit my parents and my Grandmother for teaching me right from wrong and a good work ethic...
I think there's good and bad people out there, the good people usually overcome the odds and the bad people usually get what they deserve...