Humanity House
What can it be like to be a poor kid in Iola? There were five children in our family. When we moved to Iola, my parents bought a ramshackle house on the southeast edge of Iola. Dad joined the police force, a job that he kept for nearly 20 years. We were poor.
Because there were so many of us and the pay was so little, Dad worked three jobs, carrying out groceries and doing carpentry. In Dads 20th year in law enforcement, he was injured during an arrest and never returned to the department. He started doing carpentry work full time. There arent many homes in this town that he has not laid his hammer or paintbrush upon.
We were blessed to have parents who never argued in front of us. We never heard a harsh word spoken between them. What we did hear was Dads truck pulling up in the driveway, the screen door opening and him saying a funny singsong hello. Then he would drop his hat on the counter and grab my mom and give her a big hug.
We saw my dad and mom work hard everyday. As we grew older, we were asked to do the same thing.
We were lucky. We were taught through example that how much money someone has didnt matter. We were taught to be kind and look after others. We listened to our parents laugh together. We children played and argued together. We did the things that poor families do. We never took a vacation. But we played outdoors and hiked the paths along Elm Creek. Summer was spent swimming and playing softball. Life inside our home was happy.
I had the good fortune in the last 15 years or so to be able to work with my dad. One day he told me that he had a scholarship to go to college but went into the Navy instead. When I asked him what he was going to be if he had went to college he looked at me and smiled and said, An accountant. We both started laughing. The idea of my dad sitting behind a desk all day, pushing numbers around seemed hysterical to both of us.
He said he was pretty upset when he got hurt while working for the police department and had to stop working there. But it actually turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. He loved carpentry work, working for himself, and all of the things that he had built. He finished by telling me something that I had said many times before my dad said it to me. He told me that he loved his work so much that he felt like he had never worked a day in his life.
What more can a person ask for?
Money means nothing if your home isnt happy. Money means nothing if you are not loved. Money means nothing if you spend your life working at something you hate just so you can have it. What other people think of you doesnt matter. What you believe about yourself is all that does.
Those are the lessons that I learned from living as a poor kid in Iola. I feel like the richest person in the world. Kindness matters!
