Ignorance Isn't Bliss - It's a Migraine
For amusement purposes only, I'll tell you of my next childhood businesses. As not-well-thought-out ventures go, they both bombed. One was the idea to have all the neighborhood kids bring all the medicine bottles in their bathroom cabinets to my house where we poured them all in a big bowl and then redistributed the "more colorful" assortment of pills into bottles that would gain a 25 cent up-charge for all to repurchase. Instead of new profits, our phone didn't stop ringing for about two hours, followed later that evening by a mob of angry parents separating their medications on our coffee table. I swear on some days I can still hear someone scream my name from down any given street.
Then there was the "mad scientist" as we called him who stopped in our yard one night while we were in pursuit of lightning bugs (okay, fireflies for all you non-Southerners). He made us a business proposition of a penny for every two bugs we collected and explained to us that NASA was experimenting with the chemicals in their tails. We were only netting about 50 cents or less a night and it dawned on us that if they were only using the tails that they must be killing them and this seemed a little cruel, so the club (there was always a club of which I always had to be President) decided this venture was morally wrong to continue and thus ended this business.
Aside from these, there was the usual babysittng - and I'm still really sorry Debbie that I let you roll off the couch and bang your head when you were a baby - but perhaps that explains a few things, right? And there was the all Saturday pea-shelling for my uncle Howard. After giving up nearly four hours of prime time Saturday kid hours, he doled out a quarter. Really?
There was the continual soda bottle retrieval where no kitchen, garbage can, vending machine or the City Park was safe. We'd stop at nothing to retrieve bottles grossing enough for 25-cent cheeseburgers to avoid having to go home to eat and possibly being called in for the day to do some ridiculous chore.
No matter where or how it came to us, money did not appear without work. As I entered junior high, it was never more apparent that I would have to have money to compete.
It did become about clothes and who could buy their gym uniform on time and who had to ride the bus instead of being picked up.
Also, who got to go on field trips, attend basketball and football games and the dances after at the Y. And of course money for Saturday movies where we all began to explore boy-girl relationships. Talk about your peer pressure! It wasn't about drugs and alcohol, it was about party invites, sleepovers and at least making the appearance of being able to keep up. A thank you out to classmate Wanda Baylor, who was kind enough to invite all the kids in her class to her birthday party at her nice house with the pool. Kudos and hope you kept your values!
When my parents could only lay out cash for five outfits and some new shoes at the beginning of school year, I knew I was in some deep social shit. I had to find a way to make serious money. My Dad said I could come sew socks at my uncle's mill and make about 15 dollars a day. I jumped at the opportunity.
In the next two days I learned some really important things, not nice things, but important things. I learned about oppression, depression, despair, anxiety, and finally resignation. All this from sewing socks.
I learned ignorance has a high price and requires a lot of vices. See tomorrows post- The Wheels of the Mill Go Round and Round
Then there was the "mad scientist" as we called him who stopped in our yard one night while we were in pursuit of lightning bugs (okay, fireflies for all you non-Southerners). He made us a business proposition of a penny for every two bugs we collected and explained to us that NASA was experimenting with the chemicals in their tails. We were only netting about 50 cents or less a night and it dawned on us that if they were only using the tails that they must be killing them and this seemed a little cruel, so the club (there was always a club of which I always had to be President) decided this venture was morally wrong to continue and thus ended this business.
Aside from these, there was the usual babysittng - and I'm still really sorry Debbie that I let you roll off the couch and bang your head when you were a baby - but perhaps that explains a few things, right? And there was the all Saturday pea-shelling for my uncle Howard. After giving up nearly four hours of prime time Saturday kid hours, he doled out a quarter. Really?
There was the continual soda bottle retrieval where no kitchen, garbage can, vending machine or the City Park was safe. We'd stop at nothing to retrieve bottles grossing enough for 25-cent cheeseburgers to avoid having to go home to eat and possibly being called in for the day to do some ridiculous chore.
No matter where or how it came to us, money did not appear without work. As I entered junior high, it was never more apparent that I would have to have money to compete.
It did become about clothes and who could buy their gym uniform on time and who had to ride the bus instead of being picked up.
Also, who got to go on field trips, attend basketball and football games and the dances after at the Y. And of course money for Saturday movies where we all began to explore boy-girl relationships. Talk about your peer pressure! It wasn't about drugs and alcohol, it was about party invites, sleepovers and at least making the appearance of being able to keep up. A thank you out to classmate Wanda Baylor, who was kind enough to invite all the kids in her class to her birthday party at her nice house with the pool. Kudos and hope you kept your values!
When my parents could only lay out cash for five outfits and some new shoes at the beginning of school year, I knew I was in some deep social shit. I had to find a way to make serious money. My Dad said I could come sew socks at my uncle's mill and make about 15 dollars a day. I jumped at the opportunity.
In the next two days I learned some really important things, not nice things, but important things. I learned about oppression, depression, despair, anxiety, and finally resignation. All this from sewing socks.
I learned ignorance has a high price and requires a lot of vices. See tomorrows post- The Wheels of the Mill Go Round and Round
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