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Posts tagged ‘money’

NEWARK MEMORY: LIFE ON A SHOESTRING

We have just finished the annual ‘season of shopping’. What follows are some shopping memories, a time when you only bought what you could afford.

LIFE ON A SHOESTRING

Some time ago I heard a report which stated that the average person carries about eight thousand dollars in debt. I am sure that that amount has increased since then. I have only a couple credit cards and try to keep my debt under control. I also use my credit cards as seldom as possible for they can be easily compromised. But on hearing this broadcast, my mind wandered back to my youth, a time when people not so much lived without but lived with what they could afford.

For most of my youth credit cards did not even exist. They started flourishing in the 60’s so, when I was young, they were not even an option. My parents didn’t even have a checking account. When there was a bill that needed to be paid we went to the drugstore and got a money order. Money orders were the only way we sent money through the mail.

In my neighborhood, credit was not as much a way of life as it is today. People lived on what they could afford. With the exception of houses and cars, you bought what you could pay for then and there. I must admit just writing about life without credit seems so foreign and unreal. Buying just what you can afford seems like such an odd concept, yet that is the way it once was.

The way a person received their pay was also different in my youth. Friday afternoons, my dad was home from working at the tannery for hours, but he had to return Friday afternoons to get his pay. I would sometimes take a ride with him; you could smell his place of employment long before you could see it – Ocean Leather – gaining this name because it was the only tannery at that time that could tan shark skins. We would drive around to the loading dock where drums of chemicals stood, the soil, stained shades of purple and green was soil to be an OSHA nightmare. So, into the building we would go, past large rooms where various stages of tanning was taking place, and into the office. Here my dad was handed a brown envelope with bills and change and that was his pay. That’s the way people were paid back then; you actually held your pay in your hand. It was not electronically sent to your bank from which you electronically paid your bills. You were able to hold what you earned, actually see it.

Friday was also allowance day for me, as it is now for my children. For completing my choirs, I received fifty cents a week, and when I could really control my spending – not wanting another model or book – I turned those quarters into a dollar bill, real folding money, which I would immediately take to the cellar and hide. In some respects, I never did get over the hiding fetish. I still have hordes of Kennedy quarters and half dollars along with a plastic bag stashed away for the new state quarters being minted. To this day a quarter to me is still real money. Although my kids make fun of my concept of value, with a quarter in my pocket I’m okay. How things have changed, and how I remain the same.

January 3, 2026 at 2:55 pm Leave a comment

OPINIONS & OBSERVATIONS

WHEN WILL THIS COUNTRY WAKE-UP?
Today I heard about a shooting in Gilroy, California. Three dead, so far, including a six-year old and a thirteen-year old. Lives robbed of a future by an asshole with a gun. Lives which could have made a difference to our world.
I have driven though Gilroy., California many times on the way to San Jose, the home of my former wife and current best friend. You could smell Gilroy before you reached it. As we approached the town we were greeted by a bucolic countryside, pleasant and peaceful. We approached the town along highway 152, a pleasant ride through the hills of brown which may change according to the weather. From my experience the weather never changed much, until now. The global weather change has stirred things up for California, and actually, all over the world. Of course, the existence of this phenomenon is a myth, fully apparent if you are a ‘stable genius’.
After an incident of tragic proportions, the news if full of sorrow, memorials, bicycles ridden for great distances so we remember the current tragedy. In my opinion none of these inspired acts make a difference in the mindset of our current society. There are too many mass shootings to remember. Even what happened in Los Vegas, 58 killed and more than 500 injured. That is not a mass shooting. That is a war we are not winning unless there is a change in the morality of this country. Where the right to own a weapon comes before the lives of the victims we hear about every day.
I do not want to take the rifle out of the hands of hunters. I do not want to take the weapons of those who want to protect their homes. I want to take weapons out the hands of the unstable, of those with a past history of violence. It will take a far greater brain to resolve all these problems, but I have one observation.
The answer is MONEY!
Unfortunately, our entire society’s values, mainly those who control our society’s goal is more and more money.
For decades and beyond the direction of this country has been bought by organizations and individuals with an agenda. How to make more money. That money buys politicians and who knows what other levels of our government. They always say your vote counts which is true. But money buys the individuals you can vote for.
The only way we can see to right this wrong is to fight money with money. Have the 1% with a conscious, and love this country for the opportunities it has provided them unite and bring back the values that have made this country great. Buy back our freedom which is rapidly changing. Use your wealth to make this country, which gave you the opportunity to make that wealth, a country we can all be proud of again,
The ball is in your court. Play it wisely for this country’s future.

July 30, 2019 at 4:16 am 1 comment