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I took Mary and the kids down to Louisiana and we stayed on my sister Frieda's houseboat

on a lake.

We got there with only a few dollars and all the time we were there all we had was $145

that came from my welfare check.

That was all that we needed because each day I was out in the lake running trout

lines and had a hundred hooks on them.

So I was catching enough fish for us to eat and to sell for all the things that we needed

like milk and whatever for the kids.

We spent the next five months living on that houseboat and it was the best time of our

lives.

I went through a lot of changes living on that houseboat because I wasn't around the club

and going to the meetings each week and only being involved with members and their way

of thinking.

Which to me was something like brainwashing.

We lived in our own little world and had been so intent on keeping up with everyone

that everything we did was so normal to us.

But after a while living on that houseboat I began to notice how all the things that we

thought were so important and how we lived was so far out of touch with what was real.

It started to really work on me.

I'd been spending a lot of time on that lake each day and had gotten in real good shape

and rowing and such.

...