When I was young - my dad would say, "We were so poor, that we were "PO" - we couldn't even afford the "OR" to make us poor." My sister is 3-years younger than me, and while my mom was at the hospital with my newborn baby sister - my dad and grandfather put a toilet in the storage room (enclosed back porch of a shotgun mill town house) of our house, so my mom would have a place to rinse the dirty baby diapers.

My mom and dad worked their asses off to provide much better for my sister and I than they had growing up, but for several years when I was young - it was tough times around our house. However, everyone else was so poor, to be honest I really don't feel like I missed out on anything. When I was about 12 or so, things got much, much better - and we were at least middle-class.

I remember eating fried deer steak, mashed potatoes, milk gravy, and pinto beans almost every single night. Lunch at home was typically, bologna sandwiches or if it was during school whatever they had at the cafeteria. Breakfast was normally two cans of whop biscuits and/or fried potato cakes (from the left over mashed potatoes from the night before).

The funny thing is - my favorite meal is fried deer cube steak, mashed potatoes, milk gravy, and pinto beans. My favorite sandwich is a fried bologna sandwich and I love Pillsbury buttermilk whop biscuits (the cheap 4-pack that you get at Wal-Mart). And my whole family loves fried potato cakes from leftover mashed potatoes.