Group Project #1: "Grateful For Being Grateful"

There are only traces left of what I remember the old neighborhood to be. Being there now actually makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m sure some young professional, given the choice of Ashland and Division in 2010 or Ashland and Division in 1987, would quickly jump at the opportunity to move into the up-and-coming, developing neighborhood. The property values are sky rocketing, condos are going up everywhere, the number of coffee shops seems to be doubling every few years… in fact, I still remember when the first one opened up and myself and some local kids egged the exterior, busted in one of the windows, and spray painted things like “die yuppies, die” and “not wanted!” on the sidewalk around the little shop. Our revolution was not televised, and nobody cared. Progress will never rest in a land that has no head. If you had shown these latte swilling folks some images of the old hood from the 80’s or early 90’s though, they’d probably want nothing to do with it. Dilapidated, burnt out houses surrounded by struggling families and corner stores. Taverns on the corners and gangs and drugs rounding out our cultural influence and it was just fine by us.

I think my parents hated the old hood when my brother and I were little. It was certainly a different place then when they grew up in the area some twenty or so years earlier. Violence had risen and per capita income had plummeted. They probably didn’t feel very good about having children in such a messed up environment. However, my grandparents owned the building that I grew up in and the drastically reduced rent was all my parents could afford at the time. I’m pretty sure that they actually feel guilty about it to this day, no matter how much I’ve reassured them that I am, in fact, very grateful for the way I was raised.

We were poor people surrounded by severely poor people and my parents always made a point of pointing this out. In no way were they ever gloating or bragging… quite the contrary. My brother James and I were taught to be thankful for every little scrap of everything that we could ever get our hands on. They were running a scheme that I didn’t catch onto until I started venturing out into the world. They were constantly telling us how fortunate and lucky we were to have the things that we had. My mother in particular constantly made reference to the fact that a lot of people around us didn’t have the things we had…things like toys, hot food every night, soap, TV, a bed, hot water, new clothes, coats in the winter, shoes, two parents, any parents. No matter how much or how little we ever had, we were always being reminded that life could take it all away at any moment. There was constant reminder of how fortunate and, in fact, wealthy we were.

Let me backtrack and set a quick scene here. I grew up and spent the first twenty or so years of my life in a garden apartment on Chicago’s near west side. People got shot on a fairly regular basis somewhere within earshot. Cars caught on fire sometimes. There were more bars then grocery stores in the area and as a result, there were often very, very drunk people wandering all over… yelling things to no one for some reason. The space itself, if described in a classified add today, would probably be referred to as a very large one bedroom apartment. It was used, however, as a very small three bedroom single family home. The rooms that my brother and I would come to occupy would probably serve better as large closets or perhaps small offices. Jim and I started out sharing the room that would eventually become my parents room while they occupied on of the closets together. This would change when my brother became a teenager. My mother didn’t work until I was in school around 1985. It was a decision not enough people make anymore about being around their children during formative development years. Believe me, I understand that the fact that this happened was indeed a luxury that was a result of another luxury… I had two parents. My father most often worked two jobs, sometimes three. His primary job for the longest time was working in a metal plating factory where they used to give him a big box of Jelly Belly gourmet jelly beans every year around Christmas. At home we called this his Christmas bonus and made a very big deal about it every year. It was definitely a noted event when the company no longer sent out the jelly beans. His second jobs varied throughout the years from stocking shelves at the Jewel to delivering newspapers. My mother worked retail until she landed a sweet gig with the board of education in the early 90s. By sweet, I mean that now we had health insurance… not dental insurance, but at least health insurance. We were not wealthy... we were poor.

But you see, that’s how they tricked my brother and I. They made us think that we were so well off because of all of the blessings that we had in our life that we had no idea what poor really was. Poor was all around us. But I believe that my brother and I came to understand that poor is a state of mind. We were taught that money means nothing. It’s just a thing. Wealth is derived from love, togetherness, strength, self-security and state of mind. So much energy is always wasted on chasing after dollars.

I walked away from my adolescence, entered my adulthood, and now enter my thirties with a pretty clear perspective on this life. I owe it all to the way I was raised by the wonderful people that did the raising. They, in conjunction with that environment, helped me understand what really matters in the world. I walk through my days with two constant focuses; two thoughts that I strive to make a reality with every choice I make everyday: 1) Never accumulate more money then I could possibly need for fear of losing sight of what real wealth is… and 2) I will always be very wealthy!