My life began September 28, 1931; it was the beginning of the great depression. My name we will call Sara Cato.
   For the next eleven years I was bounced from pillow to post, my parents marriage was working out about the same way, on again, off again, mostly off. I was the only child that came out of this on and off again marriage.
   Mother I don't think loved my father can't tell you how he felt for I didn't know
them too well. Mother was the oldest of eight and to my thinking my daddy was her way out.
   My father was a good-looking man, and he loved the female species. Mother use to tell me she would send him to the store for milk and wouldn't see him again for three months.
   So this is the situation I began in, with the bouncing around for the next eleven years. I guess I made out pretty well. I was growing into a pretty young lady. World War II had just begun and things in Atlanta were really changing.
Mother finally divorced my father, and she was having a ball. With all the service men in town she never lacked of a place to go nor someone to take her. I was left alone most of the time to do whatever I choose to do.
   I was only eleven but could pass for sixteen, so that I did. I got myself a job as a soda jerk at the corner drug store across the street from Georgia Tech University, where they were training naval officers. Now I was getting attention, and I might say, making the best of it.
   As for schooling, well, I went only when the truant office caught up with me. I finally finished grade school and started into the seventh grade. With my looks and background needless to say, I was out of place right after starting the seventh grade. I turned fourteen and the school board nor my mother forced me to go to school, so I quit school and back to being a soda jerk full time.
   During this time mother meet and married my step father. Life for me didn't change that much. I still went my own way. In my new home surroundings there was lots of fussing and sometimes fighting. My stepfather was real jealous of mother and that made for rough living.
   I got myself a new job as a saleslady in one of our large department stores. After only a few months I became cashier and doing some bookkeeping. After a few more months I was transferred to the second floor cashier fur department and that kind of stuff, and a little more bookkeeping.
   There I worked with a nice young lady with two children, We became good
friends, and soon she started telling me about her brother in law who she thought I would like; you have to remember she thinks I'm 18 and her brother in law was 21.
   He had just gotten out of the navy, by now it was 1947. A date was arranged and we dated for one month. We were on a double date with my aunt and what later became my uncle. Don't know how marriage came up, but it did and my new boy friend and I decided to run off and get married. Worse mistake I ever made. After finding out I was really 15 the lid blew off. Our marriage started out with a blow out and for the next five years it didn't get any better. I was treated with what is now called abuse, both personally and physically, One day I decided I had all I wanted left for work and never went back again. By now it is 1952 and I am almost 21. I moved in with my mother and step father, the fussing and fighting had gotten better, so life there wasn't too bad.
For the next five years I had several jobs each one in bookkeeping and each one a little more intense. I was a pretty smart cookie for only having a sixth grade education.
   In 1957 I meet a young man I thought I could make my life with. You have to remember I have never been in love. I liked all, but never in love. I wasn't sure I knew the meaning of the word. At any rate we married and moved to Texas. There I started a new career. I went into banking in the bookkeeping department. Staying in banking and advancing along the way and in 1964 I became head bookkeeper. My marriage was going well I thought. Then in the middle of 1965 my marriage went bah. I stayed in Texas until late 1969. I then left and went back home in Georgia. There I went to work as head bookkeeper for a small bank outside of Atlanta. In June of 1971 I became a bank officer. Not too bad, huh?
   I joined the church back in 1952 but hadn't worked at it like I should. So when I moved back home I promised I would do better, and better I did.
   Since my return back home, my aunt, the one that was a witness at my 1947 marriage had been trying to fix me up with every widower in her church. Then one day she called and said there was a young man that worked with her husband that I just had to meet. He and her husband were in the back yard working on a tractor and I had to come over for lunch. After twisting my arm I finally said I would come. After I got there she sent me out back to tell them lunch was ready. Off I went and there he was, sitting on that tractor dirty and dusty. I looked up at him and my heart went up into my mouth. Gosh, he was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. I'm not kidding. His eyelashes were about 2 inches long, this my dear friends was my first love at the age of 39. After having lunch and talking for awhile we made plans for the four of us to go bowling the next Saturday. That we did, and we either saw or talked on the phone for the next month. Then one night we had been to a drive in movie and he ask me to marry him, this was the end of May. I said yes and on July 3rd we became man and wife. That was 32 years ago. In that time we have never had a severe misunderstanding. Not to say it was always a bed of roses, but never did we go to sleep that we didn't make up. I still love him to this day, and even more if possible. You may ask, why is she writing this, a story of her uninteresting life?
   The answer is, I am an American through and through. I've worked since I was 11 years old. Voting after I became of age and paying my taxes like any good American. Now that I am past my prime, in not too good of health (but still working at 72) and hard times have hit. My sweetie lost his job this next October will be two years ago due to down sizing. In our small town there's no work of any means to be had. So he went to work as a farmer's helper at $250.00 per week. He loves his job, no pressure, but we are having a hard time making it. My medicine alone is almost $500.00 monthly. With my salary and his according to our government agencies we make almost 200.00 above poverty level.
   You know, there's something wrong with this picture. When two fine people that have worked all their life in this good country, that provided these good jobs and when times get bad and they are trying and doing the best they can, all backs are turned. When I see those that have never worked or worked very little or those that are new to our country and are not even citizens of our country, are helped to get new homes, start their own business, given food stamps, all this and they pay no taxes, and unable to vote. Get their medical and medicines free.
Don't you think there's something wrong with this picture?