My parents never felt the desperation of poverty, nor the vexation of being trapped in a town where one’s skills were barely applicable and rarely appreciated.
They never felt the hardship of continuous labor against elements and uneven, angled terrain bound to trip you at any minute – or make you slip and possibly break a leg if leveraging anything heavy.
They never felt the insecurity of power failing – how close to the edge we were living, without backup resources or communication in a drafty, canted dwelling.
Oh, they warned us it could be challenging, and chastised me for not being able to do enough like they wanted – while blaming not enough rent collected to warrant their fixing the decaying shower.
And when they visited, they stayed in their nice, well built, insulated house perched above us, “snug as bugs in a rug’s” “lap of luxury,” claiming they were homesteading.
Candid Corvid Productions 