I quit my job to take another, higher-paying job, but then I got laid off, and didn't take a pay cut, at my new job, but got laid off from it, too, and was out of work for over two years.

Brenda was laid off, took a lower paying job, teaching high school, she was laid off for the summer, then her contract was not renewed, and she was unemployed, and then found a lower-paying job.

Some of our unemployed periods overlapped.

We both used up all our benefits a couple of times.

Once we had no income at all until my benefits started up.

We worried about losing the house to the bank.

I got two mortgage payments behind several times.

I borrowed $8,000 from my mother, $3,000, $3,000, and $2,000.

Owen was let go by the Gillis Brothers. James King hired him for a month, but couldn't afford him, and let him go.

Owen was living in the second outbuilding, Bachelor Hall, seine-fishing on the Friendship with Captain Cooter.

Finally Doyle Lawson gave him a try-out, and hired him.

Balder graduated from high school and enlisted in the Marines, to be a bandsman.

We lost the house to the bank and moved back into the trailer behind Granny Brown and Uncle Wayne.

We declared bankruptcy.

We were $35,000 in debt, I had no job, Brenda made something like $20,000 a year.

That is, together we made $20,000 a year.

We were soldiers in the transition to a post-Cold War economy, or Reagan-Bush recession.

I remember good times in that house.

During the holidays, Potter and Suzette would come over and we would eat oysters and play music on the deck.

We loved that house.

But with no jobs we couldn't afford it.

We were lucky to have a trailer to move back into.

We were lucky we could declare bankruptcy and get a clean start.

Bush changed the law so an individual cannot do what we did.

Not Bush père. Bush fils.

As Barfield said about being a Fox, and being crazy, "That's a double dose."

Two Bushes is a double dose.

No reason to fear falling anymore.

We had fallen.

Now to raise ourselves back up.