nonaqtr WOW !!! Even though we are veiled on this forum with anonymity that is one extreme revelation to make. I hope that you were not one of those who saw in the streets during by business trips to our New York offices. The native New Yorkers told us that those people were just trying to con us.

I did the math and at what you said you "took in" per day it came out to a good sum even for NewYork. Now maybe we do not want to know what you did with your " salary."

I have to say that since you pulled yourself up by the "bootstraps" you must be of exceptional character.

I sympathize but I can not say that I know what you went through because as an adult I was never that poor. The worst that I can say is that in my late twenties when my wife first came down with a debilitating chronic disease and lost her job right after we bought our first house we did exist on boxes of mac & cheese but I had access to a military commissary as a retiree so we got most of our food rather cheap!!!

All that I can say is that I admire you for getting out of that situation.

PS I never begged for money but I was born in a refugee displaced person camp in Germany so until I was about 3 years old we lived off the good will of Americans, Canadians and other peoples who sent care packages to us in the camps as my parents told me. My mother always gave to food drives and CARE packages after we came to this GREAT country and I always give to food drives now. My mother told us that we have the duty to help the less fortunate there were times when I forget that lesson. But what I try not to forget is that we have a duty to try and create conditions for people who are in bad straights to have an opportunity to pull up those "boot straps" as you did. Providing that opportunity was once a Democratic party principle.

This concept of providing an opportunity is why I was once a Democrat. It's the party that went beyond the provision of opportunity to hand outs and that is why I am no longer a Democrat.

__________________
"I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land" - Guess Who? You go it !