For days all I could think about was the camping trip. As the date neared my stepfather scheduled an excursion to the sporting goods store to get the supplies I would need for my trip to the woods. We had the list of clothing and equipment in hand and headed to the store.

Being poor in the ghettos of Brooklyn and the Bronx during the 1970s was normal. It was so normal for me that I did not realize I was truly poor until I was about nine or ten years old. I did not really have a concept of poor because every one in our neighborhood was just like us. I do remember seeing some type of wealth on TV, like the Love Boat and Dynasty, but I thought it was mostly fantasy. Later I realized there were multiple levels of wealth and poverty in the world. We always had a place to live and ate dinner each night, so I did not consider us “poor” until the excitement of joining the Cub Scouts faded.

After leaving the Brownsville section of Brooklyn my family moved to the South Bronx. We lived on Kelly Street and Longwood Avenue, in the Hunts Point section. Back then our building lay next to an abandoned one for several years. When that building was torn down all the rats ran over to find new homes in our building. We lived with rats for a few days until they found permanent homes. It was a crazy time. I remember my stepfather fighting off a big rat with a broomstick in our kitchen one day. My stepfather won. Another time I woke and flew off my bed, terrified to find a dirty rodent lying next to me.

The good thing about the abandoned building coming down was we now had a huge vacant lot of bricks for our playground. I remember my sister and I would join the neighborhood kids in playing tag on the cement field. It became a skill to run fast and keep your balance through the uneven turf and not get tagged. A secondary talent was running through the field without getting a piece of broken glass or a rusty screw in our foot. I was one of the few successful kids. We considered ourselves quite gifted.

Eventually, to keep us out of the rubble next door, my parents sent me and my sister to a center they had found a few blocks away. The brown and yellow building housed the local Police Athletic League. I remember thinking it was nice of the police to create a place for us to play, and it was free. We went there several times after school. I played pool and ping pong most days and my sister joined a sewing class. One afternoon a flyer advertising a meeting for the Cub Scouts caught my eye. The idea of joining a specifically male group was pretty cool to me so I began going to meetings.

I learned the Cub Scouts was the first level a boy needed to complete before joining the Boy Scouts. The meetings taught us about honor and loyalty and prepared us for an annual camping trip. Soon the camping trip was all we could talk about. The Cub Scout leader provided us with consent forms and a list of items we would need for our wilderness adventure. The idea of actually walking around in the woods was fascinating to me, but also scary to think of sleeping on the ground with a bunch of strangers in a far away place. The new experience would outweigh my fear, so I told my parents I wanted to go camping.

The bell to the door of the Army and Navy store rang as the whiff of newness permeated my nostrils. The smell of leather and fresh cotton filled the air, mixing with the old wood of the floor and stocked shelves. The store was filled with rolls of military and camouflage clothing and all types of outdoor supplies.

I was a kid in a new kind of candy store. We looked at the sleeping bags and tents, lanterns and canteens. Then we examined the Cub Scout uniforms and the big heavy duty knapsacks. My stepfather carefully looked at the price tags for all the items on my list and said we’d come back to some things. He remained relatively silent as we browsed through all the goods. We picked up a blue belt here and a Cub Scouts cap there and continued through the shop. We then added a yellow Cub Scout handkerchief and headed for the counter. My stepfather paid for the limited items and we exited, hearing the bells hanging from the door ring once more.

We never went back to the sporting good store and I did not go on that camping trip. It was then that I realized we were poor. I subsequently stopped going to the PAL after-school program. I was too embarrassed and ashamed of showing my face again at that place. I was disappointed I couldn’t go camping, but I was more disappointed to realize then that there would just be certain things my family could not afford.

To this day my siblings continue to remind me of events in our childhood that I don’t remember. My younger sister is constantly telling me stories and looking at me puzzlingly when I don’t recall our supposedly shared experiences. When I think of being six years old I do remember my first day in school. Because of some enrollment deadline issues my mother missed I did not go to pre-school or kindergarten. I went right into first grade and do recall I was terrified that first day. I remember clearly that I cried. I, being the oldest of four kids, was the first off to school. I realized then that I would be the trailblazer for the rest of my life.

It must have been a much safer world back in the early 1970s, or my family was dangerously irresponsible to the point of child neglect. I say this because the most memorable moment that I can recall, being six years old, was a trip to the grocery store with my younger sister. My family lived in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, in a four-story yellow and green tenement with a small neighborhood grocery store on the ground level. I recall most of our food shopping was done at that store and the proprietors knew my family well. I recall one day my sister and I were given shiny nickels to purchase some candy from the store downstairs.

As I look back on the memory, the horrific part of it all was that my step-dad allowed my sister and me, six and five years old respectively, to walk down from our apartment on our own, outside our building and into the adjacent neighborhood grocery store. Growing up I was told Brownsville was a tough ghetto so it may have been worse when I was a child. I don’t know much about the neighborhood today; however there is no way anyone would let their six year olds out of their sight for a few minutes in today’s world, let alone out of their home alone with a younger sibling.

I remember when I was a kid we were one of the few Latinos in the predominantly African-American neighborhood. We did not know many of our neighbors for I hardly remember venturing out much except for school. Our building sat on a busy two-way street. I attended the public elementary school across from us which was next to another grocery store. Years later I recall my step-dad yelling out the window at me to cross the avenue to get him a pack of cigarettes, but I must have been seven or eight then. At six years old my only trip was to the store downstairs.

That day with our shiny nickels, I recall holding one in one hand and my sister’s hand in the other as we made our way to the grocery store. It was an adventure for us both. We entered, which may have been the first time ever in the store without our parents, and glanced around to see what our coins could purchase. We did not get to far when my sister’s eye caught the roll of red metallic fishbowl-like gumball and toy trinket machines, the ones where you put the coin in and turned the knob for your prize. We must have been very young for we really did not know the value of money or what our shiny nickels could buy. My sister noticed one of the machines containing colorful plastic rings encased in round plastic balls. Her eyes widened with the possibility. She put her coin in the machine and turned the knob. But nothing happened. The knob did not turn completely, but got stuck just inches from the center. It was just too small for the machine, not the right coinage for the prize. We tried to get the nickel out, but to no avail. My sister looked defeated, teary-eyed and hurt as she realized the lost.

I still had my coin in hand and lead her to a smaller gumball machine. I gave her my nickel, which she put in the machine, and this time it worked. Out came a descent size red ball of gum. My sister cheered up a bit, not the prize she wanted, but something nonetheless. I remember it was the least I could do. I thought I should have known better and not allowed her put her nickel in the wrong machine. It was the first time I guess I realized that I would need to protect my younger sister. The lesson I learned that day was that I was going to be the oldest one all my life and would have to support my siblings any way I could. I was too young really to realize what that little trip meant that day, but I will always remember it. One of the few childhood memories I still recall.

Waking in the morning well rested and rejuvenated, my ankles crack with a semi-whirl as my toes curl inward with a full body stretch to welcome the day. Click, click, snap. They are ready for their weary work out. They slowly reach for the floor to feel the soft old dusty carpet, or maybe immediately hit their targeted rubber Nike house sandals. My warm feet sense the cold soft plastic as they begin to support the weight of my half-waken body. As I walk around my one-bedroom apartment performing mundane morning rituals, I don’t notice them again until they are drenched in my aluminum rose-colored bathtub. My fingers and palms massage my feet in soapy water. After sliding through the top and soles of my feet, my fingers go up and down between my toes, feeling the rough calluses on the side of my big toes and the tiny corns on my little ones. A towel then dries them thoroughly as they prepare to be covered in cotton for the day.

In the morning my feet feel cozy and comfortable in my black leather dress shoes. After lunch they seem to begin to run out of room. Continuously hitting the hard pavement, marble and real and fake wooden floors, my toes scrape and press against the side of my shoes. By 6pm my feet are swollen and suffocating for relief. As I peel off my work shoes the odor of the day temporarily permeate my nostrils. Not that bad I have to say, except on those rare days when I wear my emergency nylon socks I keep at the bottom of my sock drawer, tucked away for when I don’t do laundry for a while. My feet breathe again with life, gradually shrinking back to normal size as the blood begins to circulate through their throbbing veins.

After dinner I levitate them on my living room couch, on top of a pillow, rewarding them for a full day of activity and torture. I watch the nightly news staring occasionally at the pair, as the entire stress of the day evaporates with the not-so-fresh scent of the day. Then as the evening progresses the rest of my body catches up to how my feet felt all day. I try not to move around much during my prime time shows, just recuperating, healing, and preparing again for the same routine tomorrow.

Finally, my feet and the rest of me are all ready to call it day. My feet slowly make their way to my bedroom and slide out of my sandals flying up lightly onto the bottom of my bed. Ahhh. I perform another complete stretch, click, clack, crack, and my feet are ready again for their reward for a good day’s work. During the night they comfort each other, big toe calluses kissing in the darkness, until the next time they snap to be awakened once again.