i ain’t broke… but….
Posted: November 12, 2012 Filed under: history, pearls of wisdom | Tags: beater car, broke, growing up, humor, my history, young 39 CommentsWhen I left home at eighteen money was pretty tight. All my savings from high school went to pay rent and my car was the epic beater. I sold it for the princely sum of fifteen dollars, (after putting my foot through the rusted floor one day, I figured a new one was in order.) As crazy as it sounds, those were actually pretty fun times, I had a pretty girl, was going to computer school and playing rugby. The future was too far away to worry about. We just took each day as we found it. We used to say:
I ain’t broke, but I am badly bent.
or
I’m so poor I can’t even pay attention.
May you never break…. and always afford attention
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I’m so going to use those lines!!!
( laughing ) I hope with a smile! I wouldn’t wish you to be poor.
Me either, I’m trying to change that!
I remember those days of being pretty bent!! Love your sayings!
thats great I can relate to that on many levels…. we don’t say I’m broke around hear we say… ahh we choose to spend this on …BREAD! the diamonds can wait… !
bread tastes much better. I like that one!
Smiling. No better teacher than being broke. I also remember it from my childhood. (during Soviet time). I’ll just say having a little is the best precondition to be really innovative. Things always had multiple purposes. 🙂 Haha. Really like your stories!
that sounds like an interesting time. I would be interested in hearing about that if you care to share – Bill
I like that first saying. Badly bent, yes.
humor helps any situation
It does. I like humor
that’s what to look for the man who makes you laugh
I’ll go where the chuckles are then. 🙂
who knows, maybe you will be smiling for other reasons after?
I hope. Fingers crossed.
I’ve often been the happiest when I’ve had the least. I wonder if that’s true of most of us…As always, love your stories, they always take me back to my own fond memories. 🙂
thanks — I am glad you read. That reminds me of how I was driving back to visit my parents in my beater ( of course I didn’t know it was such a beater then ) it was my car. And off the highway was this old couple in a cadillac with a flat tire, all dressed up and looking at the trunk. Now this is before triple-A and onstar and all that so I pull over and say “hello, let me help you with that. So he pops the trunk and I get his tire changed while we chat away.
Afterwards he offered me some money, and I said, “Oh no, I couldn’t take that”, and away I drove.
I realize now how broke I must have looked and it cracks me up.
haha! that’s funny…but your heart…that’s pure gold!
Now I am the old guy who would try to give the young guy cash.
and he’d probably take it! 😉
funny, but taking money would have ruined the whole thing.
yes, it would have taken away the joy of doing something for someone else just because it’s the right thing to do…
the worst car I ever had was from my Uncle Joe. He was a farmer and had this old car. It ran pretty good, but it smelled like a goat had died in the back. I drove everywhere with the windows down, even in the winter.
haha!
I have lots of car stories too….
I don’t know why you sold the car just because you put your foot through the rusty floor.
That was the time for me to flatten a few Campbell Soup cans and glue them to the floor and glue a rubber mat down on top of them.
And voila I got another year or so out it .
the mind of an engineer! I laughed out loud at that.
what was that you said? 😉
I said, glad you stopped by ( smile )
that’s what i thought! lol
🙂
Lol. This made me laugh. A totally different way from today’s youth.
thanks, laughter is good. I agree it was a different time.
So glad you stopped by.
Some things happened growing up that left my parents flat out broke… Poor really but that sounds so final I think. Anyhow one day my mom made one of her famous stews and the essence of this particular stew is meats and such but this time there was no money for that…
She told us excitedly guess what I made and I remember my older brother laughing and saying something like mom this is just water mixed right lol
We think about those times now and laugh. I hope we never find ourselves in those times again, but they helped shape us.
yes, and knowing where you are, think of how much courage it took for her to make that soup and carry on.
Well said…I remember those times too!!
kinda like seeing a volcano. Glad I saw it, but wouldn’t really want to live there!
thanks for stopping by
You’re right – having only 75 cents in my pocket was a little disconcerting at the time…
indeed, that sounds like an interesting story too.