Living Up The Street

Soto briefly introduces his spouse and discusses his life as it regards to his finances: “My wife, Carolyn, married me for my savings: Not the double digit figures but the strange three or four dollar withdrawals and deposits. The first time she saw my passbook she laughed until her eyes became moist and then hugged me as she called ‘Poor baby.’ And there was truth to what she was saying: Poor” (138).

In this story, Soto talks about how his “savings book is a testimony to [his] fear of poverty—that by saving a dollar here, another there, it would be kept at bay” (140). Soto says his fear stems from the difficult financial times during his child: “The time Mother was picking grapes and my brother ate our entire lunch while my sister and I played under the vines. For us there was nothing to eat that day” (141).

The year is 1973, and Soto is fearful that the recession “would lead to chaos—burned cars and street fighting” (141). Because of this fear, he talks his then-girlfriend, Carolyn, into buying “fifty dollars worth of peanut butter and pinto beans to store under her bed” (141) in case

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