Hurt my back loading hvacs onto delivery trucks in Syracuse, lost my job, evicted from my apartment, lived out of my rusted Buick skylark for 8 months. Would shower at the YMCA.
Got a job working 3rd shift at a gas station. Fellow employee there got wind of my circumstance and as broke as she was, she put me up in a hotel room for 30 days. I landed another job at the hotel and eventually got an apartment. Feet back under me, I joined the military.
Medically retired from there after 6 years and did contract work. Got laid off for 8 months. Men of the campfire rallied around and made sure my family didn't end up in the street. I got training on networking, developed a skill, got hired by IBM to do network security.
Still picking up the pieces of a slow, rough start to adulthood. But, I'm a long ways from picking soda and beer bottles out of the gutters to turn in at a nickle each so that I could buy a bit of food.
The generosity of others did me far more than having the Government steal the fruits of their labor and give it to me.
I can look in the mirror and know that it was the free will generosity of others that helped pick me up. I didn't need the Government to steal it from them by force.
