Am I cynical for not believing that everybody on Joni Ernst's school bus...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Am I cynical for not believing that everybody on Joni Ernst's school bus wore bread bags on their shoes to keep them dry?

[sharp_stick]

1. I can't believe she had bread bags man!

talk about high falutin' Iowa farmers. We had to use our bread bags to patch the holes in the wall so we didn't freeze to death at night.

We used the entrails of a Tauntaun to stay warm on the way to school.

[KatyMan]

6. "We used the entrails of a Tauntaun to stay warm on the way to school"

that's gold right there. You win the internet!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. It reminds me of the fella who said he walked to and from school uphill two miles every day./NT

[rbrnmw]

11. Don't talk about my pops that way

and it was 5 miles in 20 ft of snow everyday barefoot

[1StrongBlackMan]

22. ... after feeding the chickens and slopping the pigs! ...

your Pops must know my Pops (R.I.P.).

[rbrnmw]

25. they all must knew each other

[Orrex]

12. That was Bill Cosby, by the way.

Or, more specifically, his own father in the tale he told as part of his Bill Cosby: Himself performance.

Hmm...

[rbrnmw]

16. it was actually a lot of our Grandpops and pops who told that tale

[Orrex]

18. They should sue ol' Bill for plagiarism.

[rbrnmw]

24. why not he being sued for everything else?

[Orrex]

26. LOL

(I was hoping you'd say that!)

[Avalux]

3. Aw come on! You don't believe her?

Joni was raised on a farm in Iowa and was so poor she...yada yada yada....

OF COURSE she's a wonderful, caring person who never lies.

[Cleita]

4. She's not old enough to have lived through the Depression and

that's where that story came from. I remember before baggies became available, my mother and grandmother saving plastic bread bags to wrap food in to put in the fridge. Not even the poorest kids I went to school with wore them over their shoes. All of us wore galoshes that pulled over our shoes. They were cheaply available at Montgomery Ward or Sears. The poor kids never wore their good shoes to school either. Those were kept for church on Sunday. This was right after WWII in the forties and early fifties.

[hfojvt]

7. I still kinda do that

why buy baggies when you get bread bags for free? Reduce, re-use, recycle.

[unrepentant progress]

10. Exactly.

Although I find bread bags make horrible freezer bags. I just wash out and reuse my heavy duty Ziplocs. I've had the same box of 30 for three years now.

[Cleita]

13. I do the same and can't remember when I last bought a box of ziplocks. eom

[bhikkhu]

27. Habits die hard

My grandparents saved everything, and lived like they were dirt poor long after they weren't. My mom was raised that way, and I grew up that way. My grandma saved breadbags and wove them into area rugs. We shopped at garage sales, and slept under quilts made from recycled nightrobes. I had enough clothes to fill a small dresser most of the time, but most of it was hand-me downs. When pants got too short my mom sewed a bit more on the bottom. Torn knees got those big iron-on patches. When socks had holes they were darned. It wasn't a big deal. Things really started to change in the 70's, but it took a long time.

[TwilightGardener]

5. Bread bags were pretty common where I'm from (Pennsylvania) in the 70's--

it wasn't poverty, it was moms being practical in heavy snow areas. I wore them when I couldn't find my boots, or they were wet. I asked my husband, and yes, he's also worn plastic bags under his boots--helps you slide your boots on and off.

[unrepentant progress]

9. Same here -- Central NY in the late 1960s

It was all about practicality, especially because kids would play outside in the deep snow for hours at a time. It was inevitable that snow would get in through the top of the boot. So the bread bags really did help keep your feet dry and thus warm.

Also, we saved bread bags for more than just bootie liners. They were used as freezer bags, lunch bags, and even toys (parachutes for green army men!).

Who knows if Joni Ernst actually wore bags over her shoes. I'd think bread bags in particular would tear very quickly. They're not exactly high tensile strength material. But it's not implausible, nor is the practice of using bags as cold/wet weather hosiery that far in the past. The guffaws over that part of her rebuttal are, quite frankly, mean spirited and elitist. Criticize her horrible politics, not her folksy stories which are at least based in something resembling the truth, even if not *her* truth.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. If she wanted to talk about poverty she could talk about the 1.6 million Americans...

If she wanted to talk about poverty she could talk about the 1.6 million Americans who lack indoor plumbing.


Why engage in apocrypha when the truth is shocking enough?

[2naSalit]

19. Because for her and her ilk

the truth simply doesn't exist.

[unrepentant progress]

29. Yes. And that's the kind of criticism I would expect.

[pnwmom]

37. The guffaws are because people don't believe that a whole bus full of kids

were wearing bread bags OVER THEIR SHOES. There was no mention of boots in her story, or bags being used as bootie liners.

Her story seems very implausible to many of us. How could bread bags hold up to the grit on city streets?

[pnwmom]

36. She didn't mention a word about boots. She said she wore them over her SHOES

because they were the only pair of good shoes she had. And she could see everyone else wearing bags over their shoes.

[Mariana]

38. Everyone wore them, according to her

apparently regardless of their wealth or lack thereof. Even if her story is true, how is it a story of poverty if all the kids did the same thing?

[notadmblnd]

8. She's full of shit

is what she is. Either that or her mother and everyone else in that town was incredibly stupid. Most who has ever worn bread bags on their feet know that they go on over their socks and then into your worn out boots/shoes so your feet stay dry.

[jwirr]

14. She claimed it was due to poverty so it would never have been all of them. In saying this she

proves herself a liar. Many children like me wore those bags inside our boots because when we went out to play the snow would get down into our boots and our socks would get wet. The bags kept our socks dry. It had nothing to do with how poor we were.

[Yo_Mama]

17. Probably most of them did.

The breadbags go over the shoes, which go inside the boots. It makes them easier to put on and also provides a barrier against moisture.

The era of handmedown galoshes and latch boots seems to have escaped you?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. If "The breadbags go over the shoes, which go inside the boots." how did she see them?

Which of course was the whole part of the story.


When my dad died my family was so poor I went to school commando style but I have no idea if everybody else did.

[pnwmom]

34. That's not how she described them -- she mentioned no boots, and she said

she could see everyone else's plastic bags over their shoes, too.

Very hard to believe . . .

[NCTraveler]

20. Who said you were?

Or is this some kind of pre-emptive strike?

[gopiscrap]

21. That whole story was bullshit

her family received hundreds of thousands of dollars in government taxpayer paid subsidies

[Munificence]

32. Link please

as this story has "blown up" today and I'll admit that I am clueless on anything about this woman before today. So could you please provide your link that I can use that shows what her family received in government taxpayer paid subsidies?

[Sheepshank]

28. What tom foolery is this?

everyone who was honestly dirt shit poor, and has ever had shoes with holes realizes that breadbags go over socks and inside the shoes. That way you can reuse the bags over and over and what little shoe is left can protect the plastic of the breadbag. Put them on the outside of the shoes makes the shoes way too slippery in wet and snow and wears through in less than a day. She is a damn liar....or a really inane, stupid poor person with no common sense.

[LeftinOH]

30. I grew up in Ohio, 1970s ..and we used bread bags.

It's a winter-weather hack for keeping feet warm and socks dry.

It is not a poverty thing, it's a practical and useful repurposing of something that would have been thrown in the trash otherwise.

[pnwmom]

35. Inside your shoes or encasing them?

She claims her bags -- and those of all the other kids on the bus -- were over her shoes.

[LeftinOH]

39. Then she was on the 'special' bus.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

40. We have yet to get a satisfactory answer to that./NT

[greatauntoftriplets]

31. Her family could afford bread bags?

[kickysnana]

33. True that, Moon Boots= Everyone has to wear breadbags or have wet freezing toes. n/t

[winter is coming]

41. I don't care whether they did or not.

Whether or not Joni or her classmates were poor as children is far less important than what she wants to do to/for poor people today. Since she's a Republican, I'm guessing it's the standard trickle-down bullshit and what she wants to do is screw them while pretending to be sympathetic to their plight.