Profile-Ian Longo

Ian Longo

Tamara Cooke Henry

2/11.14

Outside Assignment 3

My First Glimpse of Reality

            I grew up in Readington New Jersey, a predominately white rural/suburban area in Hunterdon County, which is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation. I grew up in a small one-story ranch with my parents and older sister. Together both of my parents were able to put together a very good annual salary. My family always supported me in school and other activities such as sports. Although I do not consider myself a religious person, I did very consistently attend church and created very strong close connections with people in the congregation. I attended Hunterdon Central Regional High School a very large, and highly respected high school, a blue ribbon school of excellence.

As a child I spent much time with my father’s family, but not as much with my mother’s. I never thought too much of it. But slowly as I grew older and matured more I was able to notice that this wasn’t just by chance. I began to see that my parents were purposely not exposing me to my mother’s family. But from the few times a year that I did see my aunts, uncles and grandparents form my mother’s side of the family I was able to see a stark difference in my two parents’ families. Everyone on my father’s side was very intelligent, successful, and happy. My mother’s family however consists of people with character issues and financial problems.

So it would be a bit of an understatement to say that I had not felt any serious struggles growing up, or truly seen anyone struggle first hand. That is up until just before the start of my senior year in high school. After years of not caring for their house, and serious hording, my mother and her siblings decided that it was time to help my grandparents. They all want to their house to start cleaning it out, regardless of what they said. After examining the house, they found disgusting amounts of mold, and a gas leak. It was clear it was unsafe to live in that house. So because we were the only ones who could support them, my grandparents, and aunt who never moved out of her parent’s home came to stay with us.

Luckily my sister had been moved out for a couple years at this point so there was an empty bedroom. However it was only large enough to sleep two of them (my grandparents). So my aunt Mary stayed in our newly redone basement, a project my father had been saving up for for years and now lost it to his sister-in-law.

So now the house that was built to fit a family of four was now housing six. With still another month until school started, I had plenty of time at home to spend with my retired grandparents and unemployed aunt. And for the first time, I saw people who have struggled. And I understood why they struggled. The biggest thing that was easy for me to see was that none of the three of them were well educated. In fact, I would go as far to describe them as completely ignorant. The racist comments, blatant lies, and crude comments toward my grandmother from my grandfather made him someone I despised to be around. The lack of drive from my aunt to find a job and place of her own made me angry because it was clear that she was just using my parents. The idea of having a life of her own was something that clearly scared her, and she would not listen to my mom anytime she tried to help her or talk to her. Seeing my grandmother stand-by and allow them to live the way they do made me just sad. I could see that she was a good person, but made poor decisions in her life that led her here.

I had never been happier for school to start; finally I was able to be out of the house away from these people all day. As the school year went on I started to stay in my bedroom more and more. There was not much to do in there, but it was better than spending time out with my aunt and grandparents. As I started applying to colleges I started thinking too. I realized exactly how important education was. I had examples of success (my mother and father) and hard lives (my aunt and grandparents) all living in the same house as me. And what became clear to me the difference was higher education. Both my parents had attended college, I don’t think my grandparents or aunt ever finished high school. It was here that I realized just how lucky I am that I was put in this great position to succeed so I better not squander it.

My Grandparents finally moved out just before Christmas. My aunt stayed until the following June, the same time I got my first job. I got a job in a local grocery store. It was here that I got my first look at a real work place. Quickly my part-time job started to feel like a real job. Within a couple weeks the store lost many employees, and started giving me more and more hours. Soon enough I was working six days a week, and I was no stranger to eight-and-a-half-hour shifts. Although the money I was making was pretty good for an 18 year old just out of high school, I soon realized that this is not at all the kind of job I want to do for the rest of my life. This only reinforced the idea I had about the importance of higher education. As I now go through my college career this is something that I try to keep in mind in order to keep myself focused and on the strait and narrow.