By Jim Hagarty
2004
When I was a boy growing up on our farm in Logan Township, I put in some pretty long, hard days of work during the summer months, as did most farm kids around. In sowing, haying and harvesting times, it was not unusual for us to start at 8 a.m. and work till 9 p.m. During fall plowing I kept going many a night till a couple hours after dark.
And for all this hard work, I never received an allowance. I knew other kids who did, but in our family of seven kids, the job of administering allowances would have taken the combined skills of an economist, accountant and banker. My parents opted out of such a system and chose a much simpler one instead. In exchange for all this work, we will pay for all your food, clothing, housing, education and entertainment, they told us. And they did.
But if it was cash we needed, it was up to each of us to summon up the courage to ask my father for a “loan.” It was always the same scene: He’d sit in his chair reading his newspaper while I prepared to go out for the night – perhaps on a date – and put off asking for the money for as long as I could. I don’t know why this should have been so hard to do; he never turned down any request I made or told me I was asking for too much. But I just found it a most difficult hurdle to get over.
“Dad, I’m going out tonight. Do you think I could have some money?”
“How much do you need, son?”
Now came the really hard part. Ask for too much and I worried the teller’s window might be slammed shut. Ask for too little, and I’d immediately realize I could have probably asked for much more. So, regardless of my needs, I’d usually settle on a standard figure that hardly ever changed.
“Well,” I’d say, thoughtfully, as though I’d considered carefully every possible expense before making my request. “I guess I could use $10.”
My father would reach into his pocket and produce his wallet and most times, come up with the sought-after $10 bill. But sometimes, he didn’t have the right denomination.
“All I have is a 20,” he’d say, with barely concealed regret. “You may as well take that.”
“I’ll pay you back the difference,” I’d assure him, but the entire amount was already spent as he put it into my eager little hands.
“Don’t worry about it,” he’d say. In any case, where was I going to get the money to repay him when he was my only source?
Lest you think this was a bad system, and I often did think just that because of of how little it taught me about the real value of money and how to handle it, not to mention the humiliation of being 16 and having to ask my dad for money, there were upsides to it as well. Before I left in my parents’ car, a vehicle I paid not a nickel towards, I would back it up to the green gas pump by the garage and fill ‘er up. No charge. Then I’d check the oil and take off and I could drive till the tank was empty.
That was almost 40 years ago now, and things have certainly changed. Yes they have. I earn my own pay now (at least I think I earn it), take cash out of the bank whenever I want to and am responsible for all my financial risings and fallings.
But sometimes I can’t seem to keep my wallet filled up and last Tuesday night was one of those times. I wanted to catch the reduced-rate movie at the cinema but was tapped right out. Before I headed out the door, I said to anyone and everyone, “Omigosh, I don’t have any money.”
My eight-year-old son happened to be in his chair, reading a book. He looked up, and asked, “How much do you need, Dad?”
“Just five dollars,” I replied, not throwing in any extra for munchies and pop.
“I’ve got that much,” he said, and headed for his bedroom to retrieve it. He produced his wallet, took out a five, and handed it to me. I protested that I couldn’t possibly accept it. He insisted that I do.
“I’ll pay you back tomorrow,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it,” he repIied, and I had a vague feeling of having been down this road before, though I couldn’t put my finger on it.
The movie was great.
And true to my long and sorry history, 10 days later, I haven’t paid him back yet.
