S. A. Pratt

Copper Lane

They say that money doesn’t buy happiness. Well, anyone who says that has never been poor. As a child, I used to sit on my living room floor, jealous of my father who got to sit in the worn-out recliner. It was the only piece of furniture left in that room; everything else had been tossed into the wood stove one really cold winter. My Pa had gotten hurt on the job, and since there was no union they fired him before he could file an injury complaint. After a bunch of rejected job applications, he just stopped applying. Instead he spent all of his time in that chair, watching whatever shows came through our television’s antenna.