Sheltered life? I grew up poor in Chicago, where all of your neighbors are moving to get away from where you live.
If you want to give me attitude for being proud of working my way out of the slums of Chicago, that's fine, my friends have been giving me sh*t about it for years. But I'll bet anyone would have done the same thing if they had the opportunity.
Oh yeah, tearing siding off of a house is not recycling, it's stealing.
bob
OT: I wasn't giving attitude, Bob. It was a joke, apologies for trying to keep things light. I'll let your insult about my "neighbors" slide, though. Or was that a joke on your part?
Glad you were able to "bootstrap" up and out. Take all the credit you've earned. Some bootstrappers - I'm one myself, mostly closeted though - don't subscribe fully to the storyline that it's nothing but one's individual effort that makes it happen. Could just be a bit of luck, genetics, a strong relative, a helping hand or two along the way ... as humbling as it might seem to our own personal mythologies. Since you're a Chicagoan, maybe have a read through UC's Stephen Levitt's chapter in
Freakonomics on what really matters in determining success.
Yes, taking someone else's siding is stealing. Or maybe the first step in reclaiming the tens of thousands of houses abandoned in Detroit by owners and landlords, who knows? Traditional ideas concerning property rights may need to be reconsidered when a city faces years of accumulated de-population and now unneeded, aging roads, water and sewage systems, lights, etc.
Or we can just, you know, all live someplace else and not think about it. Photography makes it harder to do that, thank god.
