Romney:“Ann and I, we know what it’s like to grow up with nothing, to wonder where your next meal is

[Douglas Carpenter]

coming from, to have to choose between putting food on the table or coal in the fireplace,” continued Romney, speaking of what he called his wife’s “rough childhood” in Mobile, AL, where she was raised by a single mother. “Brother, we know that pang of hunger and hopelessness all too well."



Speaking for the greater part of an hour, Romney said he was particularly shaped by his father Rufus Romney, a strapping young man with “tattered shoes like Swiss cheese” who left early each day to work in the wheat fields outside Memphis. Returning at night with a tired look in his eyes, Romney said his father would gather his children around the table to share a can of tomato soup and dream of one day living in a “big house on a hill,” a dream Romney said later inspired him to pursue a career in business.

“After Mama wiped the sleep from our eyes and smoothed our hair, she would go off to the big mansion, bring home scraps,” said Romney, pausing as his voice filled with emotion. “Every day it was something new—a big yellow potato, sweet saltwater taffy, a creamy stick of butter. Sometimes Ms. Hartley would send home a bag of groceries too, and boy, that day never came too soon.

The founder and former CEO of Bain Capital said that while times were tough, the children were often blessed with unexpected gifts from considerate neighbors, like small wooden toys or ruby red apples. But even when the day was not so bright, Romney said proudly, they were always grateful for what they had.

“Drugs took my brother Jimmy way too soon. Vietnam took Tommy. But even after Daddy left, we never complained,” Romney told the crowd. “In our hardscrabble Memphis neighborhood, that’s just what life was. For us, it was the little things that mattered: sitting on the porch, Grandpappy playing his fiddle, Mama making buckwheat cakes in the kitchen. Simple as it was, it was all we knew, and all we needed.”

http://www.theonion.com/articles/romney-just-saying-he-grew-up-poor-in-memphis-now,29571/?ref=auto

A truly stirring story that brought tears to my eyes.

.

[msongs]

1. and heartbreak when all his sons ran away to join the military nt

[chknltl]

2. I know how she feels too!

I once ran out of Grey Poupon!! I know!!!1!

[SheilaT]

3. Oh, you don't know real deprivation.

I once finished a bottle of Dom Perignon, and there wasn't another bottle to be had. Oh, the tears! The wailing! The deprivation!

[Rincewind]

6. Bah, that's not so bad.

I was once accidentally locked in the backseat of my limo and had nothing to eat for two hours but the cocktail onions, and olives in the mini bar.

[chknltl]

8. Did you check the fridge out in the Rolls?

Not keeping a spare bottle there is grounds for firing the chauffeur I think....if not it damn well should be!

[PD Turk]

4. Damn

I can't even tell when it's The Onion anymore,I had to look. Nothing is beyond belief at this point!

[Cha]

5. The Onion had me

until it got to "Rufus". I thought Ann maybe was born in Alabama before she got to Michigan..hey, it could happen.

Is Romney wiping out Satire?

[pacalo]

7. Same here! I did a double-take at "Rufus"!

[Cha]

9. Lol..yeah,

definitely a doubletake at rufus.

[Kalidurga]

10. Read the headline sounded plausible that Romney would say something like that...

then I checked to see if it was the Onion. Didn't get to the Rufus part. If Romney's background was more unknown, I think he would try to pull something like this.

[Warpy]

11. Yes, trying to eke out a living on only $400,000 worth of stock

is such terrible hardship.

By not knowing where his next meal was coming from, he and Queen Ann merely hadn't decided what restaurant they would visit that night.

The Onion missed that angle.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

12. And the warm memory of that Christmas when Mitt cut off and baked one of his butt cheeks

for the family dinner when they couldn't afford the turkey.

[tavalon]

13. I actually read the first paragraph with my mouth hanging open

Then, I thought to look at the authors.

The truly sad thing is that he would spin such a lie if he thought he had any chance of getting away with it.

[Douglas Carpenter]

14. "Romney then produced a harmonica from his hip pocket and played a stirring, lonesome melody."

from now on when I think of Mitt Romney I will think of this song:

[Shankapotomus]

15. Yes, it must have been torture not knowing

from which fine restaurant your next meal was coming from...torture, I say.

[Enrique]

16. Politifact has rated this Mostly True n/t

[Douglas Carpenter]

17. one more