No Sin To Be Poor Intro - Live

I was four years old the first time I realized that we were poor
My hippie mom had decided we should "get back to the land"
To a tiny town called Fort Bragg on the coast north of San Francisco
We lived several miles up a long dirt road, grew our own veggies
And attended sweat lodges with the other hippies in the area

To keep me occupied, my Mom gave me three albums, Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty
I played them over and over again, singing every song and acting out the stories
Being an only child, I was used to playing alone
And I was happy to sing in the cellar all day every day
There was almost no work in town for my mom, who was cleaning houses
So we signed up for food commodities
I remember standing in a long line, and having people walk by and sneer at us
For the first time, I felt shame, dripping down my insides
The food we got was awful: government cheese, and mysterious meat byproducts
But we took it home and made meals with veggies from our garden, which made it all pretty OK

Eventually we moved back to San Francisco, and then when I was eight, we moved again
This time to rural Sonoma County
This was a shock to my system
It was the first time we had lived in a conservative area with only a handful of hippies
And we stood out
I went to school with wild hair and hippie clothes
Bringing carob chips and homemade yogurt in a woven basket for my lunch
The farmers' kids thought I was a complete freak, so I became something of a loner

Our new house was right across the street from my school
And all of the kids could see it from our classroom door
It was a small, neglected clapboard house
The yard was full of weeds, and the paint was peeling
One room even had mold from the floorboards up to waist height on every wall

I didn't mind the house too much
I loved being alone, and I was suddenly allowed to go home for lunch
This was the best part of every day
I would heat up a can of soup, read books, listen to records
And watch our little black and white TV
Saturday mornings were even better
I'd sit on the floor in the sunny spot and dig into my mom's record collection
Sometimes she would join me, and we'd dance around
Especially if I put in Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key Of Life"

So, in general, I was happy with our house
It had the solitude, books and records that I craved
One day in class, I got mad, I can't remember why, and kicked a cupboard door
One of the popular boys said in his loudest voice, "That's why her house looks like that"
And the entire class laughed
I was mortified
I cursed the luck that put my house on display, for the whole school to see

So, I had two worlds: school, where I was the weirdo, picked on, poor kid
And Home, where I was rich with books, music, dancing and fun
Around this time, my mom, became the first person in our family to graduate college
She got a good job teaching public school, and our financial situation improved
I was able to get braces, and we ate better, but we never moved out of that house
Eventually I learned to live with the house
And not care so much about what other people thought of me
My mother ended up teaching public school for 40 years before she retired
So, she more than paid back the government for the help they gave us
By teaching over a thousand kids how to read and write