the owl and the olive tree

When I was a tween and a teenager, we didn't have a lot of money. I don't mention this very much because I don't feel that we had sufficiently little money to complain about -- we had food, a place to live, and health insurance (via my dad's retirement package from the Army); when I grew -- which I did a lot as a teen, as did my brother, of course -- I could get new clothes, I had a warm coat in the winter, we had a car that ran. We were okay.

( More about money, poverty, and happiness below the cut )