Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

FROM WHERE I SIT  MONEY DOESN’T GROW ON TREES  March 19, 2008  pat spilseth

Going back to my hometown always fills my head with people from my past.  Most everyone in town believed in working hard and paying their bills on time.  If you didn’t have the money, you didn’t buy something.  They would have been wary of those tempting credit cards we’re so free with today.  Folks brought hot dishes to the sick, baked birthday cakes for their kids and made sure their elderly neighbors had visitors.   

Parents reprimanded naughty neighbor kids who set off fireworks behind the garage and spanked their own kids if they attempted to light and smoke cigarettes.  Neighbors sat on their porches visiting with friends over a cup of coffee and caught up on news.  

Messages of advice I received about life can’t be forgotten.  Back home, family and friends believed in the Golden Rule and lived by its standards of fairness and friendship. Parents taught their kids that “Early to bed; early to rise, makes and man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Well, maybe not wealthy…that would be a “sinful”   We learned that too much “pride goeth before a fall.”  If things seem too good to be true, they’re probably not to be trusted to continue.  

“Moderation in all things” was my folks’ advice.  Play had to be balanced with work.  Most of us had weekly chores around the house like cleaning the bathroom or wiping dishes, dusting or mowing the lawn.  We were rewarded with a weekly allowance.  But kids was never given too much of anything.  That wouldn’t be
good for us.  That meant we shouldn’t have too many sweets or other treats, too much money…too much of anything.   When I’d feel low and cry a bit, I’d hear “Buck UP!”  Weakness wasn’t appropriate; strength of character was valued.  Strong hearts, bodies and strong minds was important to most folks.

Remember that little figurine of the monkeys with hands over their eyes, mouth, and ears symbolizing “See no evil.  Speak no evil.  Hear no evil”?  Of course, we had one of those tiny statues sitting on a table at our house.  Almost daily I heard “money doesn’t grow on trees”, the oft-repeated answer to my teenage question about upping my allowance.   

There wasn’t much money, but I never felt poor.  After all, there was plenty to eat; I had a bike and a swing, plus swimming in the lake was free, and I could play in the woods by the big rocks christened by kids the Giant Chair and Table as well as wade in First Creek.  

 At the tall, brick schoolhouse on the hill, there was an asphalt playground with teeter-totters, hand-over-hand bars, a merry-go-round, swings and slippery slides that burned my bottom when the sun beat on that metal slide all afternoon.   I could shoot marbles, play hopscotch, jump rope and even do cartwheels on the asphalt.

The park down by the lake had numerous free activities.  There were organized activities each summer on the picnic tables like braiding bracelets, painting pottery and learning to play tennis.  We rode our bikes everywhere and paddled Jimmy Gilman’s canoes around the edge of the lake, near shore, to Starbuck, 7 miles across the water or to Priest’s Point where kids had a grand time scaring each other with tales of hanging bodies in the attic.  

Some of us had roller skates that had metal gripping clamps that held our Buster Brown shoes.  We bumped along the broken cement blocks of sidewalk down Green Street.  We played pick up sticks and jacks with a little red ball in the parking lot in front of Dad’s sheriff office and tossed a ball against the wall of a building playing 7-Up.  Hangman and ante-ante-over, cops and robbers, and rolling down the grassy hill at breakneck speeds were other free games kids played.

Life was so free…little if any money was required, just lots of kid energy and enthusiasm.  Gripping two fuzzy yellow tennis balls in my left hand and the wooden tennis racquet in my right hand, I could careen down Green Street to the city park’s tennis courts.  My thin-wheels on the three speed English bike had handlebar brakes and a gear shift, but my fingers didn’t have much of a grip with my hands filled with balls and racquet.  I’d experiment riding that street of potholes with “No Hands.”   What a thrill if I could make it down the hill, through the stop sign with no cars zipping across the cross streets and into the park without a spill!  That was kid skill!

And all that activity was free!

About the only thing that cost money was a movie where I could sit in the dark theatre with the maroon velvet curtain in a rocking double on the aisle.  With a friend, we enjoyed any movie and ate milk duds and popcorn from Merlin’s con cession stand before handing over our tickets.  I could escape into another world of the Wild Wild West riding a painted Palomino pony next to the Lone Ranger and Tonto or dance down the street, skipping in the rain puddles with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds to “Singing in the Rain” or grab a tan on a beach towel with Annette or Sandra Dee.   I could be entertained with a movie, snacks, sitting with my friends and peeking at those older kids in the upstairs “make-out” section for a few coins, maybe 50 cents.  What a bargain.

My kid life was filled with punch-out paper dolls and comic books I could buy at Potters’ Dime Store on the corner downtown.  Veronica and Betty were my teenage comic book idols along with Archie and Jughead.  The four friends would drive in red convertible with the top down:  I could feel my naturally curly ringlets blowing in the open air that I had forced into braids or a bouncing ponytail.  My hair was so thick, I needed a “do” that would keep me cool.  And I was swabbing on Ban roll on deodorant to stem my actively perspiring armpits.  So many new discoveries to make as a teen. 

Flopping flats finally freed me from childhood Buster Browns, but they probably destroyed my arches.  I loved to hear the flats click as I walked the school hallways or danced the Bunny Hop or the Twist.   Those noisy metal clicking cleats were music to my ears as I pretended to tap dance.   Dancing was a dilemma for me; there was no money for dance lessons.  Extra money was already spoken for:  I was signed up for piano lessons with Miss Rahn.  She kept petrified rocks under her grand piano, a clicking metronome on the piano’s lid, and her snoring mother rocking in a chair behind piano students playing scales.

Growing up in small town America, a good life didn’t require much money.  Life was pretty free, even when I started driving Dad’s Ford Falcon, which must have gotten at least thirty miles to the gallon.  For fifty cents, we could cruise Main Street and ride all evening, grabbing an A&W root beer at the drive-in for a break.  Living was cheap.  Later on, I discovered there are costs to that delicious freedom. 

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