It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one.

My father lost his steel plant job when I was maybe 6. He worked after that as a messenger for a local delivery company based on the East Side of Buffalo, and when my brother and I were off from school, we often rode along with him while he was working. Our early 80s pale blue Ford Escort wagon had no AC, and we spent much of those summers sweltering in the backseat while my dad shuttled manila envelopes full of contracts and other important papers from one small office to another. There were no fax machines back then, nor any email to which one could attach documents. My dad filled that gap.

The car rides were boring for us. We were young, and restless, and we wanted to stop for Happy Meals or ice cream every afternoon. My dad entertained us with music instead of purchases.

“Who’s singing?” he would prod every time a new song came on the radio.

“Gary Puckett!” I would yell, trying to beat my brother to the punch.

“The Beatles!” my brother would offer.

The winner earned privileges, like the right to sit up front next time, where the wide open windows at least proffered a summer breeze, instead of being relegated to the back seat, where the car’s windows only lowered halfway, a common trait in cars back then.

Sometimes we would have to complete the lyrics, or name the song title, instead of naming the artist, in order to win the prize.

And completing the lyrics was right in my wheelhouse. Like my dad, who my mother said could memorize the phone book but who graduated high school late and never had a day of college, I could memorize just about anything, especially words.

So it’s likely that, in the sweltering summers of the early 1980s, when my parents were wrangling with making ends meet, and my dad was scurrying up and down Bailey Avenue, I already knew the lyrics to “Fortunate Son.”

And I was already well aware that I wasn’t one.

 

 

Some folks are born, silver spoon in hand; Lord, don’t they help themselves, y’all.

My memories of our poorest moments are muddy.

We bought 29-cent fast-food burgers from a place called Cindy’s, in Lackawanna, and grabbed a 99-cent bag of chips from Wilson Farms to go with it. 4 people, 10 burgers, chips, and just a $3.89 price tag.

My father made attempts to use up any and all food in our pantry to create meals. Once, he made homemade cream of pea soup. My brother and I refused to eat it. And unlike my peers, at whose homes one could refuse to eat dinner and subsequently be offered a PB&J instead, we ate nothing if we refused what was served.

I’m pretty sure I eventually ate the soup.

For some time, it seemed that there was always a block of government cheese in our fridge, that indelible symbol of poverty during the 80s. I don’t recall how or where we got it; it may have been given to us by a family member, since many of our aunts and uncles were similarly struggling.

And I got my first official job—babysitting the neighbor twins—when I was 10. I remember wondering why I got paid to watch my neighbors, who were 8, and with whom I probably would have hung out regardless, but was never paid for caring for my 9-year-old brother.

We rented VCRs when we had $10 to spare so we could enjoy the privilege of watching movies at home. We didn’t own our own VCR until the 90s.

We sometimes accidentally got HBO, even though we only had basic cable, by strategically fiddling with the rabbit ears, though the channel was grainy, sometimes downright scrambled, and never fully in color.

We didn’t care. My brother and I watched La Bamba one summer afternoon this way, while my parents were off at work.

We went to our friends’ homes, where VCRs were a given, where the mention of government cheese was something used to mock other kids, and where 29-cent fast-food burgers were a treat, not a necessity.

Our friends had bowling parties. Putt-Putt parties. Pools and basketball hoops in their yards.

When our basketball hoop fell down, it stayed down. We threw our layups at the empty backboard instead.

 

 

Some folks inherit star-spangled eyes; ooh, they’ll send you down to war.

My dad was born on May 5, 1949.

He was the right age to be included in the first wave of Vietnam lottery drafts, and in December 1969, when he and my mother and grandmother watched the first lottery on television, which determined who would be called to service in 1970, his birthday came up as number 364. Out of 366.

Third to last.

My mother and grandmother cried in relief.

That round of the draft never got past number 125.

In late 1969, when “Fortunate Son” was playing on the airwaves, I bet my dad thought he was lucky as shit.

 

 

It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no millionaire’s son.     

It wasn’t all about money when I was a kid. Our parents did everything they could for us, and we did things together—drive-in nights, short road trips, ice cream dates, and concerts.

One of our first family concerts was a John Fogerty show, somewhere in the Finger Lakes, at an amphitheater built deep into the side of a hill.

I don’t remember if Fogerty played “Fortunate Son,” but I do remember some details about the show:

We had lawn seats. I’m sure they were cheaper.

We brought blankets to sit on and had to find a spot on the hill where our view wasn’t blocked by people who owned and brought folding chairs.

We packed our own food.

We drove there, several hours, in sweltering summer heat, in our car with no AC,  my brother and I lying prostrate on the back seat with the windows half-down, as low as they would go, listening to oldies on the radio and switching the channel as we moved from town to town.

The people on stage looked like little ants from our view, no bigger than my thumb, so small, in fact, that my childhood brain didn’t fully believe that the real John Fogerty would be down there, live, playing those guitar riffs.

But in the darkness of the summer night, when Fogerty finally took the stage after what seemed like an eternal opening act, I could tell my dad was smiling next to us, fidgeting his worn-out, cracked hands in his lap in anticipation.

He didn’t doubt that the man on stage was real. And I didn’t doubt my dad, because unlike the tiny millionaire on stage, my dad was right beside us. And I was fortunate to be that close.