In 1976 when I was 12 years old my family lost almost all their money when my great grandfathers department store business went bankrupt. At that time it was the second largest bankrupts in US history. My mother did not play any part in W.T. Grants, her grandfather had run the business into his 80’s but due to crooks, embezzlement, and interference from banks the company was forced into bankrupts and so my mother’s finical support ended. My mother went to work at the local horse-riding center as that was the only thing she knew how to do, my sister and I worked at local restaurants. My last job was at a fish n’ chip shop in Cromer and occasionally my mother would pick me up when the shop closed after she had worked all day and I was able to get us dinner from the chip shop. If she couldn’t pick me up (most nights) I just walked home along the cliff paths next to the North Sea. I Have no idea how long that took but it was wonderful.

In the spring of 1979, my mother had paid off her last leaching husband (not my dad) and given him everything from our home and took my sister and I back to America to live with my grandmother in Long Island at the family home. We arrived in America with a small suitcase and a shipping trunk that I have to this day. At this time, my grandmothers house was many years into decay and looked rather ghostly to me, full of relics from wealth long lost. By the fall, my mother and her soon to be next husband moved us to Waterloo Iowa where Ray worked as an Engineer at John Deer and within a few months of living in a rented small two bedroom apartment living off the floor and paper utensils we moved to a farm house in Eagle Center where our closest neighbor was 3 miles away and mostly out of sight (we didn’t know anyone).

After stumbling though American high school due to my mother not paying any attention to my education (I could hardly read by 10), I managed to graduate and looked for some kind of career outside what I had been doing as a dishwasher and short order cook. I entered the local tech school and 3 years later graduated as a mechanical layout drafter. That took me to a few jobs and eventually to Minneapolis in 1984. I lived paycheck to paycheck in some tough parts of town but eventually I was able to purchase my first home in Standish neighborhood for 60K. It needed a lot of work. I stayed in that home for just over 7 years making a dent in the mortgage and improving the house.

Then in 2001 (shortly after 9.11) I met my future x-wife, set up by some mutual friends. She soon moved in and then in 2003 we were planning to get married. In 2004 “we” purchased our future home together and it also needed a lot of work. My X took out two loans to buy the house while I worked to touch up my home for sale. It sold for over 100k more than I had purchased it and after all the fees were paid off there was enough left over to pay off one of the loans on the new home.

20 years later the marriage was over. It had been over for many years but “I stuck with it for the kid” but it had got to a place where I need a new home for myself and my child. I had worked a lot on that house, rebuilding brick flower boxes, tuck pointed the chimney, built walls in the basement, and painted ever surface sometimes more than twice and for the first 3 years I made payment on the second loan while also paying for family basic expenses. and utilities. At the end of each month, I had hardly saved anything and sometimes it was a deficit. I can’t get into details of what it was like in that house, and it would do good if I did.

That brings me to today where I live in my own home again, another one that needed a lot of work and if you know me at all you know everything I had done to this house. It’s in a wonderful area of Minneapolis and my kid and I can sleep safe and sound. There seems to be the recurring theme in my life, I am starting again from nothing. Nothing from my home of 7 years and nothing from my home of 20 years except this wonderful kid in my life.

I have been poor for a large part of my life; I know how to make it work. I have simple tastes and have learnt to do most things I need by myself, but I do appreciate when people give a hand either in person or just reaching out to chat. I value those friendships more than I can ever express. I am in a good place now, the daily “I love you Dad” makes it all worthwhile. And at 60, I am experiencing a beautiful sober kindness and support I have not known in a very long time. I take each day as it comes and try to be in the moment. So many of my old friends have passed on and I am keenly aware of how short life can be.

Keep on keeping on. With that, I'm off to ride my age.