Yesterday our oldest child called me, as she’d had some time in between work and classes. She asked me about the economy and my thoughts. I explained that I’d never imagined so many people going to college and having the availability to receive a higher education. It absolutely amazes me. It’s wonderful.
The next thing I pointed out to her was that when I was
growing up, many homes had a car, not many had more than one car in their
driveway.[1] It was a lower to middle to upper-class
blue/white collar town. My mother would get a used car, that didn’t cost my dad
a dime — yet it
needed an engine. Laugh now. The engine in one of the vehicles that
lasted a bit cost $800. I heard the gripes from my dad for the longest period.
Yesterday, I told our oldest that her car, our family car
and dad’s car had nearly the same worth as years before when they were
purchased as they are today, mileage and all.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, my dad did not want my mother
to work. He did everything to get in her way of her having a part-time job. My
mother had to explain to him that the kid’s needed new shoes and clothing. My
dad was astounded by this, as my older brother’s feet were growing inches in a
matter of two years. My brother was not tall, and he’d reached size eleven
men’s shoe by age twelve. I remember having holes in my running shoes so bad as
a sophomore in high school, my coach had a talk with my mom. The great thing
was I thought the shoes with the holes in them which had no tread to be found
on their bottoms were good luck. For I had a great freshman year of running in
them during all three seasons. Then, I got new running shoes — and not only did our family life
disintegrate, but mom also got sicker, my running went down the tubes, I was
the sickest and perhaps the most injured I’d ever
been at that point in my life. Too, I struggled with my grades in school.
When it came to other additional child-costs; like my
brother being a lefty, my dad bemoaned the additional cost of a lefty baseball
glove. I think it was an additional fifty cents. My mother made me a bathing
suit that lasted me about two or three years. Basically, we ran through a
sprinkler and if my mom had a couple bucks from work we’d visit a pool or a
lake three times in the summer to swim, that’s if she had a car. I had this
dress that I liked. I really didn’t like dresses, but this one, I did. The dress
was unhemmed from Kindergarten to fifth grade. We made it last. By November of
my fifth-grade year my mom told me I had grown too much to keep the dress. I
was a bit upset.
We had no washer, nor dryer. I told a neighbor last week
that after my husband and I were married in 1984 and moved into our first
apartment; that within days of moving, he purchased a washer and dryer for us,
I cried when he did so. I literally cried and realized he and I could afford
those machines. I’d only seen those machines in the Marines, my in-laws home, a
friend’s home, and well, a laundromat For I started learning how to do the wash
at age four on a metal and wood scrub-board with our sheets and towels in the
bathtub with mom. I was washing my own pants and such by age seven by hand. I
was beginning to cook by age five.
As well, my parents didn’t buy their first home till they
were married for 16 years. Before that my dad held two jobs before I was born.
He had a full-time job with a DPW and drove a taxi; then he began to accumulate
mowing other people’s lawns for extra cash. Soon the taxi job was no longer
needed. Too, he’d gotten a second promotion in a short period of time with the
town and became Superintendent of that DPW. Afterwards he did still do a few
lawns here and there for a little extra cash.
My dad loved to party. He smoked one to two packs of
unfiltered cigarettes (Lucky Strikes and Camels) per day and drank at minimum a
six pack of beer a night. He weighed 157lbs most times I remember as a child as
he was five feet, seven inches tall. To boot, he also smoked weed, some of
which he grew somewhere off the property. I do know where, but it would
absolutely incriminate others, and I won’t go there. You got to remember this
was the 1960s and 1970s. And of course, I wasn’t supposed to know about weed.
My mom told me privately when I was age seven as we walked to church that
Sunday. I think my older brother was blown by that information. I kept it in my
creative mind capsule, that later I would let my dad know that he hadn’t fooled
me. I waited about fourteen years till I told him so.
I diverged in conversation back to the economy with our
oldest on the phone. I said, “You know — I rarely
saw a piece of fruit before the eighth grade. The fruit we could afford was
canned peaches, sometimes canned pears, raisins and when my stomach would get binded,
there was prune juice my mother would purchase for me. I think about three
times my dad and I picked fruit all day long. One time was raspberry picking at
age twelve; from that mom and dad seemingly made vats of homemade jams. And
when I was age eight I picked grapes one Saturday for near ten hours with my
dad; that was to make homemade wine for us and one of our neighbors who’d
purchased a liquor license together with my dad. We picked three full roadside
trash cans that day of grapes, just dad and I.
There were a couple summers we had bukoo fresh caught
bluefish for free. One of my dad’s lawn customers would go blue fishing, loved
fishing, hated the fish. To this day, I love the taste of bluefish. Once a
year, I celebrate that incredible food, just for myself. I buy two pounds and
devour it in one to two sittings, alone. It’s such a grateful feeling.
As a child, four to five months of the year we were able to
have fresh vegetables from our garden. That began to deteriorate around my
sophomore year of high school; my parents had become separated, yet dad was
living in the basement for a bit before he’d moved out. In the winter months,
when frozen vegetables may be too expensive and fresh was not available we ate
a lot of canned S&W peas. Or other canned vegetables. They were cheap on
sale. Like ten cents for about an eight ounce can, on sale that was. They were
higher during the 1969–1970 recession usually a quarter or more, depended on
the brand.[2]”
I continued, “Now, people are complaining about fast food
and coffee shop prices for a treat. They don’t get it. Of course you’re going
to pay more for food out. Hec, you’re not making the meal or the drink
yourself. Right?” “Yeah.” She replied. I continued, “I think I saw three or
four movies in the theatre before the age of eighteen. And we went out to eat
including one fast food trip, about five times before my eighteenth birthday.
Before daddy and I had you guys, we barely went out to eat or to the movies. It
was like three times a year to eat out and once a year for a movie out. We
saved money for our future children and hopefully we could buy a house.”
My husband and I did small vacations. We stayed in the
United States mostly, Canada once and vacationed pretty much in New England,
close to our home. There was a time when I was building my business and hadn’t
had a vacation in about a few years. One of my bosses before then told me to
take a vacation, I wasn’t using the accumulated time for two years. Back then
paid vacation was a new thing to me.
“So, let me tell you about inflation and mortgages. When my
parents finally purchased their first home in 1973, you had to have a solid
down-payment, like twenty percent down was considered your best move. And the
interest rates then were by far much higher on a twenty-five-year mortgage. My
parents were initially paying about nine percent.[3] It
then got down into the eight percent range. Which was and is still considered
high.[4] As well, my parents had put down $20,000 on a
$49,000 home. The rates today are normal, they’re under seven percent. People
have become spoiled here now. Buying and owning a home has always taken some
time. On top of that, I’m seeing several homes being added to, which is not
helping our environment. But it demonstrates the fluidity of money. That’s also
a good sign.”
She was getting the picture. The economy as is life is
cyclical. No one human nowadays can make all that much of a difference without
a ripple effect. Be it good for most and not for all or visa versa. The
interest rates recently have helped us in one area and in another area have
detracted from us. At the end of the day, each person has to figure out where
not to spend their time and money; then how to allocate additional funds to
spend or grow their money. — -Jody-Lynn
Reicher
[1] https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/household-vehicles-united-states/
[2] https://search.brave.com/search?q=1970+canned+peas+price&source=web&summary=1&summary_og=6c875dbf8ff4024875ee2b
[3] https://money.usnews.com/loans/mortgages/articles/historical-mortgage-rates
[4] https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/historical-mortgage-rates-30-year-fixed
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