My brother and I laughed a lot as kids. We came up in the middle of the Depression, and neither one of us knew we were poor. We had nothing, but we didn't know it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
With my father and sister being very depressed for most of their lives, it was incumbent on me to try to make them laugh, in this ridiculous way. They were the wittiest people I knew, but to get a smile from them was like winning the lottery.
I had a lot of depression as a kid.
When I was a kid, my parents were always like, 'Money doesn't buy happiness.' I thought, 'You just didn't make enough money.' I had to go find it out for myself.
Looking back, I remember my family laughing a lot. We were never the kind of people that dwelled on hard times. My family laughs when things are tough. Growing up like that, I got used to making jokes about things that were difficult. So when I started doing stand-up, that's what I went towards.
When I was a kid I didn't feel like I fit in because - this is really silly and I probably shouldn't say it, but, I didn't think anything was funny. So I used to go home and literally cry to my mom and my step-dad at the time and I didn't think anything was funny. I couldn't laugh.
When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money.
I grew up in the heart of the Depression.
I remember once in junior high school, on a Friday, my mom came home from work and said to my brother and I, 'You know, between us, we have only 27 cents, but we have food in the refrigerator, we have our little garden out back, and we're happy, so we are rich.'
As might be supposed, my parents were quite poor, but we somehow never seemed to lack anything we needed, and I never saw a trace of discontent or a failure in cheerfulness over their lot in life, as indeed over anything.
I was a really, really depressed kid.