Welfare...

   As far as I am concerned, welfare is meant to assist you in times of need.  I don't believe it was ever meant to be your total income.  When I first started out with my first wife and 2 small boys, there was a time that we utilized the welfare system.  Both my sons were born on the medicaid system, and benefited from the formula, cereal and milk that we picked up from the store with a W.I.C. check once a month.  And even though I always had a job, we qualified for the food stamps.  
   Let me tell you, the neat little 'ebt' card welfare recipients get now a days is no where as embarrassing as pulling out your booklet of food stamp coupons.  Every cashier always looked at you like you should just kill yourself now and save the tax payers money.

A little sample of Food Stamp Coupons

  The most embarrassing time happened when we were visiting my ex-in laws in Jacksonville, FL.  They were pretty comfortable financially and lived in a neighborhood to match.  While we were there we decided to run up to the local grocery store to get some things for lunch.  When I went to check out, the cashier thought I was trying to pull a fast one with fake money.  She had never seen food stamps before, but knew there was a button on her register that was labeled FOOD STAMP.  After 2 managers and another cashier pulled out an instruction booklet from the back office, they figured out how I could spend my food stamp coupons.  They actually joked about how it was a good learning experience for them.  That day I swore I was going to find a way to get off of any kind of assistance and never go back.
   So, to get on assistance was quite an undertaking.  I had to take a day off work because it was a whole day deal.  We would take the Orlando city bus to the welfare office in a neighboring suburb called Pine Hills.  This particular route was one of the few that required a double bus, which was basically two buses connected by what looked like an accordion. 

Using this as a sample of the double bus

   The bus itself was not bad, but being the only 4 white people on the bus seemed a little over whelming.  Then when you finally got to the office, it was a very painful process to go through 4 times a year.  Oh, and to add insult to injury while we stood there in the Florida heat, so hot people were selling cold soda for $2 a can, other welfare recipients were pulling into the parking lot to get in line for there monthly allotment.  Driving brand new Caddies and Buicks unnoticed by anyone that it should matter too.  

   There were times we found ourselves living in different parts of the state and my first wife went in to the local office in Okeechobee to update some information.  As soon as the case worker learned we were not living in the same house she tried to get my first wife to sign up for monetary assistance to help with bills and rent.  And to subsidize this assistance they were going to hunt me down and garnish my wages.  The wages that were already paying bills and such.

   Welfare has its place, and is a good thing, but I think it has become over abused and a source of income instead of assistance....

Home is where the heart is....

   I have lived in many different places over the years, from houses to apartments, mobile homes to a garage.  Where I live now is the best place I have ever laid my head to sleep.  Yes it took me a long time to get to where I am now, but the work was worth it.  To some, my house is pretty simple and minor compared to others, but I Love my castle just the same.   Saying this is the best place I have lived in gives sign to the many other structures I have called home. 

   Of course I started out in a great home in the wonderful state of Maine.  My parents had made a home in a strong house near the ocean surrounded by a forest of trees.  It was where my life began and I spent the first 8 yrs of life.  Where I made my first best friend Brent, and where I gashed my foot open on broken soda bottles that I had broken just because I could.  Cutting my foot did help decide the new family car, since I bled all over the backseat of the station wagon my mom was test driving.  It was all I knew as a home until my parents decided it would be a good idea to move to Florida.  Over the next 8 yrs of living with my mom, we lived in several houses, duplexes and mobile homes. 

   One place was in a town called Tangerine.  Basically, a blip on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere.  It was a duplex surrounded by an orange grove that was inhabited by wild dogs.  You had to be careful if you went out into the grove because the dogs were no where near domesticated and were always looking for food.  My little sister and I attended a school mostly attended by kids from the local grove workers that were mexican immigrants.  So there was a lot of spanish going on around you and you didn't understand a thing.  We didn't stay there long,  but there are a few memories, good and bad I still retain from that blip.

   Another point of interest was a house my mom rented on the corner of 23rd St and Woods Ave in Orlando.  We were a little over a block from a main road known as Orange Blossom Trail.  A road filled with strip clubs and prostitutes.  That life normally stayed out on the trail, but one night a hooker was being stabbed by an unknown assailant and my mom ran out and yelled at the man to stop what he was doing.  The guy ran off and my mom called 911.  Another glimpse into the neighborhood we lived in, I was the only white kid in 6th grade.  Talk about pick your friends carefully.  Oh and as a side note: Don't pass gas in class when one of the top ten r&b songs at the time is She Dropped a Bomb on me.

   At the age of 14, I was living with my Mom and Sister Amy in a quadraplex in Winter Garden, Florida that was kind of behind a strip mall.  It was owned by a middle eastern couple who also owned an ice cream shop a few miles away.  It was also a couple blocks from my first place of employment, Hungry Howie's Pizza.  It was the place I learned a lot about life.  My first boss Kenny was an 18 yr old guy who was learning about becoming a man, and I was watching from the sideline.  Of course I wasn't only watching the good side of his education.  I was a freshmen in Jr High, and trying to do my own in school, but my main life was happening in that little pizza place in a suburb of Orlando.  This was where I met the young lady that not only took my virginity, but gave me gonorrhea in my eye.  I was an asst mgr and busting out pizzas.  Telling people two and three times my age what to do.  While we were living in this place, my mom ended up needing to have surgery and I had to stay with my older sister Chrissy for a while.  During this stay I had my first chance to drive a car.  I ran to the store for Chrissy and when I pulled back into her apartment complex some kids ran out in front of me.  When I turned to avoid them I accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake and slammed into my moms car.  Ooops!

   For the next couple of years I bounced back and forth from Okeechobee to Orlando.  Met my first wife in Okeechobee, ended up becoming a father and made a 'home' in the garage of my future mother-in-law's house.  After surviving that we packed up and headed back to Orlando.  One of the places we lived in was a 12x60 trailer.  To call it a mobile home would be too nice.  It was in an over cramped trailer park right off good ol' Orange Blossom Trail. But it was a place we could afford while I went to school.  Just some of the amenities included the kitchen counter made out of a piece of plywood with a sink cut into it.  As a bonus there was a piece of fabric tacked across the front to cover the huge hole in the floor under the sink.  Yes you could see the ground under the trailer by moving the fabric.  Our next door neighbors were a gay couple, and their trailer was 5 feet away from ours.  When they stepped out their front door they were looking in our living room window.  We could have evenings of conversations without leaving our trailers.  There was a scary she-man hooker that would stand out at the entrance of the trailer park and actually get picked up.  People would walk around from trailer to trailer and offer to buy food stamps from anyone who was willing.  The going rate at the time was $10 cash for $20 in food stamps.  One cold night I went to get something out of the car and noticed a young girl walking around in about nothing.  Obviously realizing why she was out this late, wearing as little as she was, I offered her some hot chocolate.  She sat on front step enjoying the warm drink and told me what I figure is the truth about how she ended up where she was and where she planned to go.  I do wonder if she ever got where she was headed.

   There are several other places I have called home over the years, and I may revisit this subject again at some point, but for now this is all I have....