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I didn't but picked up cans on the side of the road to save for a vacation to Astroworld. I did that every summer from age 8-10 with my twin brothers by my side 2 years below me.
What though wanted to write is my mother's experience. It can be a tear jerker so have hanky ready.
My mother is from a small town in East Texas called Etoile. She started chopping cotton at about age 6 about 1948 with her sister 8, mother and grandmother in order to make ends meet. My mother was paid 2 dollars a week to chop with her hoe , her grandmother and mom did not get paid much more. I can just imagine my cotton topped mommy, with her green eyes and fair skin as a little child just chopping up what she could with a hoe probably much taller than her. She told me she never complained even though her hands hurt so bad, she knew she had to work in order to have shoes and a new dress for school. Her grandmother Ma worked in a row next to my mother and aunt. She would twist and reach her hoe over and get the cotton my mother and aunt did not seem to hoe with a smile in her eyes. She was looking out for her grandchildren making sure they would get paid. They would work from sun up till sun down on rows that seemed so endless and be so worn out at the end of the day.
At this time, there was a traveling piano teacher who made her rounds through the schools in the area over the summer and she was giving lessons for 10 dollars for the whole month. My mom had only so much money and decided she was going to take. She had saved enough money to buy 1 dress and her shoes for school and the rest she decided she wanted to take the lessons. So she went with her jar of money and gave it to the teacher. She only had enough for 3 lessons. My mother took them and when there wasn't any more money, she had to stop. My mom knew for the first time that she was POOR and it really hurt her because she desired to learn something and didn't have the means to do it. Can you imagine understanding what that is at age 6? I look at my own 6 year old with his chunky cheeks who favors my mom when she was 6, when he holds his head down when things aren't right, I can imagine just a small little cotton topped child doing the same. She tells me it hurt because she wanted to learn to play because the piano was fun and made pretty sounds.
Times were so tough then, that is why after awhile, my grandfather made the move down 59 and went to Houston for awhile for a better job.
My mom when she tells me the story, she almost cries and I am crying too.
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