Living in the Present $

The depression was a instructive time to learn about money. From school we went to the bank fairly frequently to deposit our pennies, nickles and dimes into our saving accounts, and then proudly carry the little books home to show our parents. Saving money was part of our education, credit cards were unknown, and would probably have been unmentioned even if they were around. It wasn't even optional not to think of the future in this regard. Was it Benjamin Franklin that said: "A penny saved is a penny earned," and several years ago on our first farm a local farmer echoed that sentiment when he reminded me that every cent unspent was just like money in the bank.

Lester and I were on our way up the hill to the metal pile with cutting torch. Seems there was a part there that would work on the Farmall, we needn't weight the costs of going to the dealer or the tractor junkyard. The part was there, it was just a matter of getting it off, using some rust buster on it, and getting 'er installed. Later on in his dotage, Lester and his wife, Millie, would get caught up in driving twenty miles to Walmart to save a few dollars on this or that, I don't think dear Benjamin Franklin would have been amused.

Living in the present is another matter, although it may have had something to do with Lester and Millie's Walmart dilemna. The times have become tougher, people are more distracted and needing to be pacified; and so saving money is not so important and spending it is. The dilemma is obvious, and credit cards and the entire credit regime can't make up the difference. Debtors anonymous and the bankruptcy courts have to be legion, and the need to get satisfaction from spending money will just get more extreme. In my late seventies I can only shake my head and try to understand what youner people are going through. I sympathize completely, of course, and wonder how in the world the spending and saving of money will shake out.