Well, I think we need to quit painting all the poor with the same brush. Everyone knows that unscrupulous people take advantage of the system. I have already posted remarks about the distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving “poor.” It seems to me that some of you don’t even recognize that there are MANY in the deserving-poor class.
I guess it’s about time to tell you all that I was raised in a family that was poor. However, I was unaware that we were poor by community standards until I was an adult, since we always had plenty to eat. My father was a subsistence farmer on 160 acres of land, mostly forest. He had no automobile, no electricity in the home, and no motors of any kind. He did all of his farm work with horse-drawn equipment. If we needed to go to a neighbour’s place a few miles away, or to a store, we had to go in a horse-drawn wagon in summer, or sled in winter. Occasionally, a neighbour would take one or both my parents to a town located 36 miles away in his automobile. Also, we had many visitors come to the house, some of them staying overnight. Others would come and get us with their automobiles and bring us to their house for a meal.
My mother canned hundreds of quarts of wild blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries, as well as venison and garden vegetables. Oh, yes, and delicious high-bush cranberry jelly and jam. These products were necessary during the severe winter in which it was not uncommon to have Fahrenheit temperatures of 40 or 50 below zero.
My father was a hard worker, but had no ambition to improve his lot. He was content with the life he lived. Venison was our main source of meat. Out of necessity, my father began hunting deer, together with my older brother about August—night and day. Yet, interestingly enough, when hunting season rolled around, he always bought a hunting license. We lived in a small, unfinished, uninsulated house (I still live on the same property with my wife, though in a different house, of course). His only “luxury” was his requirement for one can of Picobac tobacco per week to smoke in his pipe.
My father was a proud man who refused any help by way of welfare or any other social programs. There was a local pulp mill about 36 miles away, and he managed to get a small contract for around 60 cords per winter. He cut down the pulp wood with a swede saw, hauled the wood to the road with horses and dray. It was then loaded onto a pulpwood truck that held about 6 cords, a truck which my father hired to transport the pulp wood to the mill.
When we were children, we were never given any money by my parents. If some other relative ever gave me a quarter, or even a dime, I considered myself lucky. I recall that when I was about 14, I used our team of horses to rake the hay on a neighbour’s field, and the neighbour paid me $2.00.
When I was 16, my older brother, who had a job away from home, gave me $9.00 to spend at a local fall fair. I was amazed! I had never had that much money in my life prior to that. At that fair, as I purchased hamburgers and fries, and rides in the midway, I felt as if I were wealthy!
The nearest school was a one-room country school located 2½ miles from our house, and there was no school bus. The older children rode bicycles to school. I had severe bronchitis as a child, and didn’t attend school during the winter until I was in grade 5, at which time the school closed and a school bus took us to a consolidated school located 6½ miles away.
Occasionally, a member of the community would take up a collection for my parents on special occasions, such as a special wedding anniversary. My father was able to accept that, since it was a gift. Sometimes it was as much as $100 and that was a LOT in those days.
When a small, nearby church closed, they wished to sell a small house that served as a manse for the minister. My father’s sister, who was connected with the church, brought up the matter to him. They were asking only $700. It was a much better house than the one in which my father lived with his family, but my father simply declared to his sister that he didn’t have the money to buy it, and I’m sure he felt he didn’t have the need of it, either.
I suppose my story bears out the view that some of the deserving poor don’t require any outside assistance. However, I am sure there are many of them that do, if they could be persuaded to accept it.
Thinking I misunderstood him, I rephrased my question but got the same general response. He literally didn’t care if his money was being used by an alcoholic to further his alcohol addiction. All he cared about was getting his “blessing”. I for one do NOT think God blesses that sort of self-centered irresponsibility.
I am not willfully ignorant. 
please address my original post. 
