You ever eat liver noodle soup, Amos? Or snail soup? We had them all the time when I was growing up, because we were very, very, very, very poor. We were so poor that the church mice were looked down their noses at us. So poor that we eat cow pie for a special treat. So poor that beggars and tramps gave US crumbs of bread. We didn't even have our own pants until we went into the military...we had to share the same pair for years and years, which got tricky at school and church. We were so poor we not only didn't go to movies and have a radio or television, we hadn't even heard about them.

And yet, it built character and made my siblings and me what we are today: eccentric as all hell, but never boring.