The Red Light Bulb

Beauty may be staring you in the face

I come from a poor family. Not poor by global standards, or even by the standards of some people in the U.S. But for a white kid coming of age in the U.S. in the latter part of the 20^th Century, I was poor. Years later as a social scientist, I learned about relative deprivation, which means that given your expectations based on others in your environment, you can be relatively poor.

While other kids in school lived in entire houses and had their own bedrooms, I lived with my family in a series of overcrowded apartments that always needed more repairs than they were given. Looking back, many of the arguments and strained relationships we had might never have happened if we simply had a less claustrophobic living space. 

I did not get an allowance, and Christmas gifts were often relatively few in number and practical. Things that were everyday items for other kids were special treats for me. I only had one birthday party while growing up.  Instead, a birthday meant something like going out for a hamburger. Money given to me by visiting relatives was always put in the bank, though at one point a grownup withdrew money from my small savings account to pay the bills.

I had one pair of shoes. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs and slightly out of style. I had only one Halloween costume, inherited from my older brother and worn by me each year until it was too small. We listened to the radio rather than buy 49 cent 45s. For overnight trips, we used shopping bags to carry our things instead of suitcases. Public transportation was often the “preferred” mode of travel. 

My ongoing request for a goldfish was denied. At the gullible age of four or five, I was told that a fly in the kitchen was my pet. I thought I’d never hear the end of it when they spent ten dollars on clarinet lessons that I ended up quitting. "Money down the drain," they sadly called it.

Going to the movies was an unusual treat that only happened a couple of times a year, and never involved the whole family. In the summer, the only traveling was to the homes of other relatives. Maybe once every few years we’d go to an amusement park for the afternoon. The women in my family can be seen in photos wearing the same “best” dress to any number of occasions over time. A major social event was the wedding of a cousin, for which my aunt excitedly sewed the dresses for herself and her sister.

When I was growing up, my mother—and later my aunt—always worked outside the home. Unlike the other (white) kids, there was no mom in the kitchen with cookies and milk when I came home from school. The hard-working women in my family were plainspoken, did not employ so-called feminine whiles to get their way, and did not defer to men without a fight. Instead they simply said what they wanted, and didn’t take crap from anyone.

My family was also extremely self-conscious about its relative poverty. I was not allowed to have an after-school job because the neighbors would think we were poor. I also was not allowed to eat at friends’ houses for the same reason (though I regularly broke this rule and never told my family). When a friend’s parents wanted to take me with them to the movies, I was told I had to come home, because I should not “impose” on these other people. Once in the summer I went outside barefoot, and was yelled at because what would the neighbors think?

Yet while they often said they did not want people to think they were poor, my elders never actually owned up to being poor. They never said they couldn’t afford something. In fact, they said nasty things about people who did act “poor”—people who used margarine, bought dark meat tuna, or had what my family considered to be poor taste in clothing and furniture. When, at around age 12, I complained we always had meat loaf and never steak, I was told meat loaf was much more interesting than boring old steak.

I knew I didn’t have as much as other kids, yet my family often was much more snobbish than these other households. The result was that I, like numerous other family members of my generation, spent a lifetime never quite understanding what money was, and unable to figure out if I liked it or hated it.

But there was something good in growing up poor without quite knowing it. I often didn’t know the difference between what signaled the absence or presence of wealth, so I never was in awe of the affluent people whom I occasionally happened upon. I never believed having more money should give you more license in how you treated others.

I also never thought that beauty could only be found in mansions. In my teen years out west, I discovered the beauty of the natural world. But even before then I found beauty in mean factory towns. Until the age of six, we lived in a typically overcrowded walk-up flat that faced a dirt backyard. Hearing the neighbors above and below us became a standard aspect of my life. As an adult I’ve felt insecure when where I was living was too quiet—when I did not hear some reassuring sounds during the day coming from neighbors through the wall.

At night, across the dirt backyard, there was a window in another flat that always had a red light bulb turned on. I used to look at that red light and think it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. Over the years when I’ve needed to calm down or cheer myself up, I have often recalled that simple red light bulb in the dark. In  a way that is difficult to explain, it has been the seed of much of what I write about in novels and poems.

We later moved to another apartment in a different factory town, and for whatever reason I (and other people) enjoyed looking out the entryway window. It faced the modest house next door, and across the street was a billboard—nothing much to look at, I suppose, yet somehow it lent itself to daydreams.

One of my all time favorite quotes comes from Chekhov: “Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Many people probably cannot see how broken glass reflecting light at night can be beautiful. But I used to love to walk to the sooty, abandoned railroad tracks and see just that. I am glad and proud that going hungry and doing without informed my youth. I am pleased to find beauty in broken glass. 

Of course, looking up at the moon itself doesn’t cost anything. But anyone can do that.