8/3/15 Slight Correction To Stunning Fear?

    So my Mom was telling me I didn't get it, and after talking to her, I think I am glad I don't get it.  She wasn't just talking about being poor, but terribly poor.  Her recollections include going to the point of being down to one egg to split between the three of us. 
    This conversation started when we were driving to Rockport Beach and my Mom remembered some man who apparently lent them $50 for their first apartment.  She described it as a shed behind a small house which itself had been converted to two small apartments.  When they left their hometown of Crystal City, they looked around and rents were around $15-$30 a month.  When they got to the big city of Corpus Christi, that shed behind the house they stayed in before I was born was $70.  I guess that was difference that they borrowed from that man.
    My mom was finishing her degree at Texas A&I Kingsville, and she admits she was torn between suffering currently and finishing or getting a job as a cashier or something and possibly losing that window of opportunity to finish that education.  She chose wisely, as smart people usually do.  I have no recollection of suffering.  I thought life was great growing up, there was always food in the fridge, we ate pizza from Pizza Hut once a week or so and chicken from Golden Fried Chicken at will.  What else can a husky kid growing up in a tiny town want?  We had air conditioning and no curfew during the summer times, life was grand.
    But all this was on the backs of my folks who did start with nothing.  Mom was saying she'd buy like four loaves of bread for .75 cents, and bologna was very cheap as well, along with eggs and milk.  That was our staple.  I started saying "but bread goes bad if it sits too long", but if every meal consists of bread, it isn't going to sit too long.
    So even though they were in a city we just view as our summer vacation destination, to them, it was a do or die situation, there were no food stamps then, or WIC to lean on.  They survived and got strong from relying on each other.  This lasted three years.
    Mom says going to the beach was just something they didn't even think about.  They went out there where they went because it was an excuse to get out of their tiny apartment and socialize a bit.  They were never scared of going out, they were just so poor, they stayed in their neighborhood.