Over the past many years I have gone from having enough, to being worried where my next meal would come from back to having enough to live and maybe expand a little do things like replace the television that broke and I got rid of three years ago. Oddly I have been unable to get myself to part with the money even though I want to be able to watch my childhood friend fish for crab and see what is new on Secrets of the Dead and Antique Road Show. I seem to be walking on eggshells waiting for the other shoe to drop even though my income is over double what it was a year and a half ago and my job is secure I see these good times as transitory. I live just as I did before when I couldn't really depend that I could buy food or that I would have enough money to pay the light bill in short I live on less than half of what I have the rest goes into savings. It is a new experience for me, I wonder if I will ever feel secure again. I wonder if anybody ever will, or is it just me?
People have handled these hard times differently some have grown bitter and lashed out. A good friend of mine who writes here once wrote an article about moving through hard times, finding strength he didn't know he had and being grateful for what he was learning from the experience and those bits of life he still had left. He penned it while sitting in the Van that had become his home wearing fingerless gloves to try to keep his hands warm. Writing was one of the things that kept him going during those rough times. His reward was being attacked and called a snot nosed trust fund parasite and on and on mainly by people who were in the same boat. He understood and so do I that it is really easy to feel like the world is against you. In the end he climbed out of his poverty right around the same time I did. I still see a lot of that bitterness here in many comments. While I get it in a sense we may be biting the hand of someone who is going to make a big difference someday if we use our experiences to educate instead of spew garbage all over the computer screen.
More below the fold.
I don't understand the mentality of beating up people who have been fortunate in life just because of that. It's about character not the quantity of dead presidents they possess.
History and the people I have met have caused me to be able to discern between those who have a goal of amassing great wealth and those who get there accidentally while trying to keep themselves afloat or doing something they really believe in where money is not nearly as important as the goal.
The first bunch tends to step on anybody and everybody in their way without regard to the suffering they cause. They also believe everyone is out to rip them off, the attitude they present towards those they employ usually makes that a sure thing. Most people are not fond of being treated as disposable.
My favorite was an old woman who was my first real boss. in 1933 her husband died leaving her with no money, only five kids under the age of ten and a chicken farm that faced onto a main road in the farming town which she lived. In those days before inspection laws she began butchering chickens and selling them on the street corner. When I went to work for her 50 years later the chicken farm was a modern processing facility that generated several million in net profit a year. She hired me because she thought my years running fishing boats in Alaska qualified me to run a loading dock populated by real outlaw bikers with long records who she gleefully hired against her "uppity" sons wishes. Her son was the other type the kind that wants to hoard money because he thinks it makes him better than others. The bikers loved her, I loved her, on my 21st birthday at quitting time they fired up the Harleys and we all went to the most notorious biker bar in a nearby city to celebrate. She was right there with us, she was well over 70 then but still liked to walk on the edge when she got the chance. She was good at it, even the police were terrified of this place she was not only right at home she was the star of the evening. Did I mention she lived on an 80 foot yacht? She also paid all of the medical expenses for one of my dock workers when his son had leukemia and our insurance wouldn't cover the treatment that ultimately extended his life. She did it because she could not because she had to. After I left that job for new horizons I still got cards from her checking in on how I was doing. I went to her funeral when she died at age 89 still at the helm of her company. After she died her life work unraveled as her children fought in court for control when it was all done there was nothing left she always felt she had failed at being a mother and they had turned out badly she kept trying to the end to get them to see the light but in this she failed. They had to learn the hard way.
Then there was great grandpa, being a true blue Washingtonian he never took orders from the other Washington. He only followed the laws he thought made sense. Prohibition was not one of those laws. While Al Capone was busy taking over Chicago my Great grandfather was manufacturing Apple Jack the Washington version of moon shine and smuggling it into Olympia. This was a side job, during the day he worked for a logging company falling the giant old growth trees with a hand saw nicknamed a misery whip. The money he earned from his criminal activity went to buy a bankrupt saw mill on the shores of Lake Union in Seattle during the depression. They limped it along until the housing boom after world war two then it took off and he became a timber baron. His thing was providing good jobs he was very good at doing just that. The mill burned in the early 80's it was then he discovered the property he had acquired for $300.00 was worth the treasury of a mid sized country. He provided for every last worker, education for every family member should they want it and still had millions. Down the road when the logging industry collapsed he used it to prop up the small timber towns and put structures in place that would create permenate jobs. He was better at it than our government unfortunately. He ended his years living in a small log cabin on 80 acres he had acquired in the 40's when an old man was about to lose it to property taxes. He bought it, and gave the old guy the right of possession for the remainder of his life. In return we got to go camping on part of it a few times a year. He believed spending boatloads of money on himself to be trashy and low class.If he were alive he would tell you Mitt Romney was just a trashy waste of air, those were his exact words for more than a few of his friends descendants who felt entitled because their grandfathers had made a lot of money I could name names but I won't I still consider many of the great grand kids my friends. His only concession to wealth was buying a brand new ford truck in 1983 to replace the first new ford truck he had bought in 1948 he sold the original to one of my cousins it is working on it's fourth engine and third transmission but it still runs and sports the original paint. When he bought the new truck he felt bad he wouldn't need his mechanic as much for awhile. To this day his fund still owns the majority of the commercial district several small logging towns and fishing villages rents are based on a percentage of profit the wood related businesses he lured to a few places with cheap rent and start up help are still there providing jobs. In some places they named streets after him, if he knew this he would have been terribly embarrassed and not understood the fuss.
Funny thing, even with all his wealth my Great Grandpa saved string, washed plastic bags and forced all of us to learn to hunt and grow a garden so we would never have to worry about going hungry. Even with the vast amounts of money he had I don't believe he ever felt secure after the depression. His actions were common among his peers. He passed that on not the insecurity but the frugal ways. Had he not it is likely I would not have had a roof over my head. Maybe this insecurity just one more scar we all have to learn to live with.
Thank you for reading my musings as I try to wrap my brain around this slightly difficult area. Share your thoughts with me I would love to hear them.