Skip to main content

It's Cyclical


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 dimeyet 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 shoesand 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 Id 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 knowI 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


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2023 Holiday Letter from the Reicher's

Well, I didn't think I'd be doing a Holiday Letter this year, but here goes... The Spirit of Norm is in the air. As the wind whips with minus a true snowstorm.  In hopes the Farmers Almanac was correct, I pray to the snow gods. Rain ensued the month of December thus far. We have nearly tripled the amount of rainfall usual for December in New Jersey. And I've witnessed its treachery. Storms such as these hit us hardest in July. Then remained fairly intense through til about early October.  Our daughters are doing well, Thank God.  Their Dad would be proud of them. Our oldest Sarah, now a Junior at UCLA pursuing her degree in Chemical Engineering. She's digging the whole California scene. Which I thought it was for her. She's had some good traveling on her off times from school. For her March 2023 week off, she drove her and a few friends out to Lake Tahoe and went downhill skiing for a first in nearly 5 years. She had to rent the ski equipment.  Funny enough when

Maybe It's About Love

Maybe I just don't get it... "...My father sits at night with no lights on..."---Carly Simon  In my male-dominant mind. Dr. Suess-ish sing-songy "...go go go go on an adventure..." (George Santos' escapades gave me permission to use "ish".) I'd been accused of not being detailed enough in my writing. as my writer friend, Caytha put it to me now near twenty years ago. I knew she was correct. It's gotten a lot better, a whole bunch better. But the writing of sex scenes... Well... I'll need Caytha for that.  "...his cigarette glows in the dark..."---Carly Simon  Even my husband Norman could have written the simple sex scenes better than I, that I currently need in my script. And he was not a writer, but a math oriented thinker. Ala carte he was a nurturing romantic. And a sort of romantic Humphrey Bogart to his Ingrid. Otherwise, I won't go into details there. I'll let the mature audiences use their imagination. I am so

Birth is a Lottery

  Yes, this is about Taylor Swift and Love. I’ve had this discussion in depth nearly twenty years ago with a client. We were discussing being grateful for landing where we had in the years we were born.  As to now, after that conversation, my attitude still holds. You gotta kind of be happy for other people in some way, no matter where you came from. It’s like good sportsman-like conduct. You lose, you shake hands, hug, whatever. That is how I’ve handled it 99% of the time, win or lose. I remember one time, one moment in my life I didn’t do that. And I still stand by my not doing so that evening after a competition. Otherwise, every other competitor deserved my congrats.  My fight coach said that I was unusual (2013) because after losing a fight, I act as though I’ve won. To me, it was that I was just so happy to be able to compete. I’ve lost more than I’ve won. I’ll say that again. I’ve lost more than I’ve won. In softball, when I was aged nine (1971), we lost all our games as the &qu