Robert Evans

So the family is like working lower middle class, but he does get to see how the big shots do.

And he comes to want that for himself.

Now, despite the fact that Jimmy often portrays his family as being quite poor and like unusually poor, it's noted by people who knew them that Agnes actually like the family owns an unusually large home.

His mom makes them buy a larger home than they can really afford.

So like a lot of the rooms are kind of empty, I think, because she wants a big, nice house is like a status symbol.

Right.

So she has to budget really carefully, but they're able to afford the house.

So they're doing OK.

He goes to school.

No, they're not that poor.

They're certainly not the bottom rung in terms of like poverty.

They're not like comfortable, I wouldn't say, but they're they're getting by.

And even though this house is kind of bigger than they could afford, his mom is really good with stretching things.

Yeah, that's pretty normal.

Yeah.

He goes to school in town, and the main method of discipline in Jimmy's era and the place where he's going to school is that the headmaster will beat you with a bamboo cane if you're bad.

This is not, again, weird for the time.

But ow.

Because Jimmy is so sickly, he qualifies for free milk and a free spoonful of malt at school each day, which I think they're trying to help him avoid getting rickets.

I think that's why they give him a spoonful of malt.