I Survived Lifelong on Almost Only the Typing Course I Took in the 7th Grade

In spite of a liberal arts-humanities master's degree in English, only the typing course that I enrolled in during the 7th grade at age 11 1/2 supported me all my working life as far as earning enough money to live on. Every other skill learned in the university actually never paid enough to propel me above the poverty line.

What's the use of being anti-capitalist when all you have in the world is a tiny social security retirement income that you have no idea when it will be taken away at the government's whim? When you live below the poverty line, like I do, and are well over age 70, all you have to look forward to is playing being the capitalist and fantasizing what life would be like if you had to depend on capitalism as compared to the monthly 'net' three-figure social security check.

As a capitalist, you get to be an independent contractor living below the poverty line for one. That means if you write for various citizen journalism sites, you may or may not get paid. No pay is guaranteed for your labor. And yet, you're a capitalist, a business person, and independent contractor. Independent is the word, but can you live as a capitalist?

Now you take a look at your classmates, for example that kid in middle school who sat in front of you has just sold her home for five million dollars and bought another for 1.5 million dollars. She's the same age as you. What did you do to turn out living below the poverty line in old age? And what did she do to own a Manhattan apartment listed for three quarters of a million dollars for sale last year as well as her parent's house for five million which she sold?

You wonder. She didn't go to college. You have a master's degree in a liberal arts subject. Did it do you any good? Not really. That's my story. Everything in life I earned is based on the typing course I took in the 7th grade. I survived for 45 years of work life on being able to type more than 60 words per minute, which I learned at age 11 1/2 in the 7th grade in that typing class.

Meanwhile the rich kid who live five blocks away graduated high school and went into her family's business. She never went to college. But she did go to real estate school for a few months and got her real estate license. Then she started selling homes to rich people. But she had an inheritance from her family, who had a business, who were capitalists.

Hey, I'm a capitalist also, but had no living relatives with businesses or property inheritances. So I ended up in poverty in my old age. And she ended up with millions. I have the master's degree in English. And she has her high-school diploma and her real estate license. She sold houses to millionaires and billionaires. I sold my writing for one sixty-three hundreds of a penny per click on any of my 2,000 or so articles. Maybe I should have skipped college and took the exam for that real estate license. Or perhaps gone to medical school when tuition was cheap in the 1950s.

Did I have the wrong major--English? Did I think that teaching jobs would be open after the 1950s? Not when there were more college graduates in English seeking community college teaching jobs than there were jobs open. But in the 1950s, a fortune could have been made selling Florida or California real estate to retirees. But it never occurred to me to sell real estate. Back then all I heard was "get a good liberal arts education and go into book publishing." You've got to be kidding.

She also has male siblings who are lawyers and successful businessmen. I have no siblings or any living relatives that I know of with money. What I wonder is why are so many movements anti-capitalist when I'm a capitalist...a rich girl without money not a poor girl. Was it based on marrying a poor guy without a college degree? The girl with the 5 million dollar house never married anyone. It has been more than 50 years since high school graduation.

Whatever turns out, it's possible to live below the poverty line and still be a capitalist as an independent contractor earning less than $6,000 a year from your capitalism. And as far as help from the government, I thank the government so far that as a person over age 70 I still get that tiny three-figure social security retirement check that I worked for since 1959....because that's what I have to live on in my years of deep decline.

So, I have nothing but admiration for the capitalists who made it since 1959 when all of us were in high school. At the last 50-year reunion so many of the public high school graduates made it also--successful doctors, lawyers, dentists, business persons who aren't living below the poverty line in old age. They did make it even though we all lived a short walking distance from one another from kindergarten through high school and knew one another's parents, for the most part.

Maybe that's why I'll always call myself an independent contractor and a capitalist. The alternative is living below the poverty line, which, I'm doing...and yet I'm content, serene, and happy because of social security. I don't think my great grand children will have that three figure check each month when they retire.

That's why I'm glad they're all doing the best they can to earn a living and get an education that at least is marketable. Sometimes poverty forces you to become a capitalist. In the old days, before 1900 it would have been immigration or loss of farm land.