"Rags To Riches"

TV shrink Dr.Phil Mcgraw is a multimillionaire now,but as a youth he was homeless and so poor he lived in a car.The toughest time in his life came when his boozer dad ,Joe quit selling oil drill bits and went back to the University of Oklahoma to earn a Ph.D in psychology.
Dr. Phil ,his parents and two sisters lived with his older sister in a cramped 1,100-square- foot house in Oklahoma City and earned food money with pre-dawn newspaper-delivery routes. He did that one with his dad every morning at 4:30/5:00am and every afternoon, he had a paper route that required him to throw the papers off his bike.
Dr. Phil says it wasn't his allowance,it was food money,"if you didn't come home with the money you didn't eat,even at 12,I understood if you don't work you don't eat. "
After his dad Joe graduated, he had to intern before he could hang up his shingle, so he left his wife and daughters and took 13-year-old Phil with him to Kansas City. Dr.Phil recalls his dad saying my son needs to be with his dad."So off they went" Dr.Phil says he was homeless,living in a car with his dad.We eventually got a room at the downtown YMCA for five bucks a week,and then we put together some money for a deposit on a one bedroom apartment that had no running water,electricity,heat or air conditioning.
While it sounds bad,Dr.Phil now says he "cherishes " that time."That was my time to deal with stress and adversity-lessons I'd never have learned any other way at that age.
I learned what it meant to work hard to stay focused and to set goals.The hard times also bonded me with my father, who died at age 69 after a lifelong battle with alcohol.I was never closer to my dad than doing those lean times,we relied on each other ,we were fox-hole buddies."My take on it: you make your life what you want it to be, it's all up to you.But hey,that's just me...
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