What Does Kindness Really Consist Of?
I grew up in the 70s, in what I think of as a working-poor household. Maybe this is what some describe as lower middle class, but what I mean by it is this: my parents had steady jobs and worked at them diligently, we were always housed and fed, we had a working car, but we didn’t have a lot of extras. We had the clothes and shoes we needed, but not a closet full of extra things. Our vacations were road trips, once or twice a year; we took up no expensive pastimes, such as skiing, tennis, horseback riding. The children of the house participated in no costly extracurricular activities, and we got jobs as soon as we were old enough. My parents gardened and played music, cooked 90% of our meals at home, and took joy in the little things, like a cold beer after a long work day, or a particularly vibrant sunset.
It was a great way to grow up, but I don’t know that I realized it at the time. Though I do wish we’d had heat in the house growing up, I look back with a fondness that can only come from time and distance on my sisters and I, jockeying for position in front of the fire so we could warm our clothes before we put them on. It was fun, in its way, though maybe not so much for stepdad, who rose before we did to chop the wood for said fire.
My childhood home was in a neighborhood of 70–80 year old homes, on wide streets with mature trees. Close to…
