Starting A Decade of Alternative Housing

The previous posts relate a brief history on my struggle to secure shelter for myself and my family. Many of my ideas may seem,...distressing to some, but the original intent during those times was survival, while trying to learn how to make it in life. Please consider I had some fun along the way.

I was to some extent launched into this search by one single act by my Father that to this day is not recognized as having any effect on me. My Father did very well for himself up to a point, and his theory on education rested on the muscles in his back, hard knocks, and a subsidized living from his Father's business that allowed him to pursue other income streams. He be railed structured education, and I as his firstborn followed his lead for a time. Early on I tried to make a go at it like him, but I was not afforded the resources that he was. He will never realize this.

He gave me $1,500 and sent me off to a trade school for Dental Prosthetics, and said: "When you need more, call me!" I feel I have never been that demanding for resources. He had always indicated that he would pay for those things. I was dumb. I stretched that money. I bottled food. I dried food. He brought me a little Ford Ranger, and said the payment's are $125 per month, and you need to put gas in it. I thought, ok that is not too bad, thanks! My trade school required me to attend 8 hours a day for 5 days. I found a part time job, that turned into a full time job. I became very sick. I ran out of money. I was hungry. I called my Father. He said he did not have anything for me. I thought it was just timing. The next week he bought I believe two of those really nice propane overhead porch heaters for $1,500 a piece.

I worked more and started to fall behind in take home school work. The course I was taking did not offer a degree. You don't even need to be certified to work. I realized that the local market was about to be flooded with all of the new "graduates," so I quit school after 9 of the 10 months feeling secure in my abilities, so I could at least feed my face. I began sleeping on friends of friends, couches to network until I could get on my feet. I sent the truck home to my Father. I bought a motorcycle, and eventually the snow pushed me to buy a little Ford Festiva that I virtually lived out of for a short period, then actually lived in for a longer period.

I had no idea of any social services available. I still don't really have any idea what was, or is available. I lived as I could, one day to the next. I began to value each day.

I began to reconcile considerations for portable housing. I understand what was going on in my field of study now, but at the time I did not realize what the Laboratory owners were talking about when they spoke of; "unstable," and unsustainable low gold and high noble metal prices. I was told by one that extremely low prices are always a sign that it is time for the economy to be re-sized. It did not take long for the laboratory owners to beat down the workforce in an act of self preservation, preempting the recent economic bust. I responded to the glass ceilings I encountered with employer changes. I was bouncing from Lab to Lab learning new techniques and finding out that nobody would move me much beyond the starting wage. I learned that if my housing was not portable I would not be able to stay in the field.