We didn't have a lot in those days, but I didn't feel poor, because I didn't really reach for more than I could get. My mom always worked, first at a bank and then at a hospital, because we needed two incomes. My dad drove a truck for a while and then a bus, delivering school lunches and in the summers, camp lunches. I guess we were poor, but we always had plenty to eat, big dinners every night and really big meals on Sunday nights.
We knew we had more than a lot of other people. When my father was delivering school lunches, he used to bring all the extras home. See, sometimes there were extra lunches that didn't get eaten and the schools were going to trash them. But my father felt, no, this is good food, it shouldn't go to waste. So he'd bring them home, break them all down and we'd go around the neighborhood, delivering them to kids all over. And if we knew that a family was really needy, we'd give them lots of extra special stuff. And my friends thought it was cool, y'know, that we had all this school lunch stuff. They'd come over and say, "Oh Donnie, could I get a package of cookies and a chocolate milk?"
The one time it was the hardest for us was when the school bus company that my dad worked for went on strike. We really had no money. But my father stuck by the union and I'm glad he did what he did. You know, people were telling him, "Go back to work." But my dad was a strong union man and he stood up for what he believed in. And that helped me learn to stand up for what I believe in. He even lost one of his best friends who crossed the picket line.
When his company was on strike, we really had no money and we got food stamps. For a while, I never thought about it, but I remember one day I was going to the store with one of my brothers and my friend. And this friend, he was like a real peer to my brother, he hung with my brother's crowd. And I wanted to get milk and Pepsi. And I said, "I got a dollar and a food stamp," and my brother slapped me. And I didn't understand, I was like, "Why did you do that? What's wrong?" Before, I didn't worry about admitting stuff like that, but because he worried about it, it made me worry about it too. It was dumb to be ashamed of that, but it's part of growing up. Our society makes us ashamed to be poor, ashamed to have pimples, ashamed to be ourselves, but I want my fans to never be ashamed of who they are - no matter how bad things seem to be they have to stay proud and stay strong. Life is too short to worry about wrinkles in your jeans. When people shout you down, you must know they are only trying to find strength in your so-called "weaknesses" because they themselves are weak. I hope someday the world won't be like this. People won't judge other people cuz they're different or whatever but if we keep a positive attitude now and teach it to our kids and the next generation, then maybe someday America will finally live up to its reputation and truly become the land of the free.
Another thing about when I was young - my parents would do some things for us that they felt were important. They might not have given us money to go to the movies, or do this and that, but when baseball season came around, if we wanted to play they would really try and get that money together so we could. And they struggled to pay for my sister's dance lessons.
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