General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This message was self-deleted by its author [View all]Arkansas Granny
(31,544 posts)live in those circumstances will do and have to do in order to survive. I don't feel that posters are mocking you as much as they are disbelieving that Joni Ernst ever lived that way, but it's pretty obvious that some here just don't know what it's like.
I was raised in rural SW Missouri in the 50's. Some of our neighbors had no electricity, some lived on dirt floors and outhouses were the norm. Most kids got up in the morning and did chores before breakfast and going to school. Nearly everyone in our one room schoolhouse wore hand me down clothes and were proud to get "new" things when family, friends and neighbors outgrew them.
And, yes, some kids wore bread bags on their feet, if they were lucky enough to get them before they found another household use (they were a novelty and people used them for a lot of things). Some wore them over their socks inside their shoes and others wore them over their shoes to substitute for rain boots. Some would wear them on their hands with a pair of socks over them to serve as makeshift mittens.
A lot of the kids I went to school with brought their lunch in brown paper bags or old lard cans. A real metal lunchbox was a luxury item, especially if it had pictures of Roy Rogers or Hopalong Cassidy. Before we had a school lunch program, some lunches consisted of a couple of biscuits leftover from breakfast that were smeared with a little syrup or molasses and, on a good day, a couple slices of cold bacon. They went home to a supper of beans and potatoes. Having meat on the table was a treat and the only fresh vegetables they had came from the family garden.
I don't know if Joni Ernst ever lived in this kind of poverty or not, but the stories are true. If she lied about it, then shame on her, but to deny that these things never happened is to ignore the reality of living at subsistence level or below.