Social Witness, REDO

Here is my much-improved paper, which still needs work. I just need more time! From the beginning:

“Anything good in the mail?” my boyfriend asked, hoping for one of his beloved comic books.
“Just advertisements and our rent bill,” came my reply. He groaned a response.
“How much are we short this month?” Joey questioned. I thought a moment.
“Umm, probably about 60 bucks, 70 at most,” I concluded. I paused, considering the options. “We can just put it on a credit card,” I suggested.
“Yeah, I guess we’ll have to,” he somberly responded. This predicament was nothing new to us. We have lived in our current apartment for almost two years now, and were doing well at first, as I was working 55 hours or so a week while he was working part time and going to school to be an EMT. Then I lost one of my jobs, which came as no surprise, seeing as the turnover rate of employees was typically one month, so as a six-month veteran I had long overstayed my welcome. I found a new job fairly quickly, but the place had some problems that were beyond my capacity to change, so after three months, in July, I was done there too. All the while, I still had two very part-time jobs that paid exceptionally well and I absolutely loved the work. One of these jobs was tutoring, to various age groups, and the other was Mad Science, a program for kids that primarily does after school classes. While I loved these jobs and the pay was excellent, they interfered with any potential jobs I might get, as they both necessitated that I work during the hours immediately following the school day. I browsed the Classifieds for serving jobs, thinking I could either work in the morning or evening, before or after my other jobs. Every restaurant I could find required experience, and if they didn’t it was either a scam from the Congo or located in a seedy part of town. Dead end. Then, in my daily Classified searches, I stumbled upon a serving job at a nursing home, requiring no experience. To make matters even better, it was less than a mile from my apartment. I was hired on the spot. By this time, Joey was working almost full time at Blockbuster and between us, though things were tight, we were making it.
The following summer, I started back at the UA after a three-year hiatus. I kept up my serving job, as Mad Science and tutoring don’t offer much work during the summers, but had to lessen the number of hours due to the intensity and rigorousness of summer classes. Additionally, I now had the expenses of college with which to deal. I put an entire summer’s tuition on a credit card with the intention of paying it off entirely when my student loans went through in the fall. In my family, debts are viewed as something you should only get involved in if absolutely necessary and I, too, am of this mindset. This view comes from the conservative religion in which my parents were raised. My grandparents have even stricter views on debt, being of the Depression era.
Back in the 1950s, my grandpa also went into debt. His debt was in order to start his own company. Born in a tiny town in south-central Kansas, Harold Dyck was the oldest of six children. As was typical in his community and during his time, Harold only completed the eighth grade. Kids in his family were expected to help out on the farm, and once a kid graduated eighth grade, they became a full-time farmer for their family until they married and began a farm of their own.
But Harold had different ideas than his family. “I refuse to be poor,” he often said. “I want more than this.” However, growing up with parents as farmers and all your relatives as farmers, along with an eighth grade education, doesn’t provide many options for other careers. So, Harold used what he knew well, all his years of farming and all his family’s history of farming, and went into business. He and his business partner created a piece of farm equipment that would revolutionize harvesting wheat. They called it the Swather, and it is still widely used today. The high school I attended in the same small town that my grandpa began his company likely is the only high school nationwide to have a piece of farm equipment as their mascot: indeed, it is the Swather.