A Penny For Your Thoughts

When Ms. SpoolTeacher was a  just a little latchkey kid young girl, she and her sisters and all of their friends had the pleasure of no such thing as electronic gadgets and would just roam the neighborhood on their bikes or bare feet.
(There was that one Christmas when they got tape recorders, but that only kept its fascination until the newness wore off; then back to bikes and bare feet.)

(Oh, yes, and the year they got pocket "transistor" radios. Now those they used to death, listening to the Beatles on their sleep-outs in the yard.)

Christmas gift babydoll nighties

An all too frequent thing they'd do was go up to the nearby U-Tote'Em and get a nickel's worth of high fructose corn syrup candy, (it was probably real sugar then).

Her first lesson in economics came at a fairly young age and it stands out to her even yet as one of her first reality checks.

Bubble gum was an essential item and for the most part one piece was enough for her. She liked Pixy Stix or SweeTarts. (Ooh, makes her pucker just thinkin' about it.)

They would have had to have collected soda bottles from wherever they could find them and turned them in for the deposit because her mother didn't have money to waste on candy. (Although it does seem that she would give them each a nickel here and there. The rich girl up the street, whose parents owned the only furniture store in town, always got a quarter).

None-the-less, they felt pretty powerful and consumer-ish leaving with a little brown paper bag filled with penny candies.

One day, something seemed a little Bazooka with the bubble gum. What was it?
For all she knew, this is the way it had been for some time and she had just become cognizant enough in age and reality to take notice of it. What was it that was different all of a sudden...hmm, hmmmmm...

It was smaller. Sure enough, that's what it was, it was smaller.
But it was still a penny. What! ...What! "Should be half that much", she thought, "It's half as big as it used to be."
What a ripoff! (that was the word of the day)

She became inflamed. Just who did they think they were, changing her Bazooka Bubble Gum without her approval. "I didn't agree to that!" she thought.

Inflation. She was starting to understand that already, knowing prices were always going up and poor Mom having an ever harder time to make ends meet; but to cut something in half and charge the same price..Ripoff!

Still inflation. She had just never seen it like that and this time it really made sense. (She's a highly visual learner)

"...inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a loss of real value in the internal medium of exchange and unit of account in the economy. "

"Well, that's the last time I'm gonna buy Bazooka bubble gum again, ever."
She thought that would really get 'em.

Funny, the things that make an impression, even teach life's lessons. A silly piece of bubble gum got the message to her loud and clear.

She's never understood though, why things have to keep going up. It has never quite made sense. It's just a vicious circle.

Today when she took a check to the bank, they informed her that starting July they will have to add a service charge to her account. You know, things are tough for the banks and all...

"Well", she thought and actually said out loud, "I'll just have to open an account with the credit union." (there take that).
"Well", the bank attendant replied, "I'm afraid it won't be long before the credit unions will have to do the same."

"Well then", Ms. SpoolTeacher said, "I will just have to insist my clients pay in cash or charge them an extra fee."

Vicious circle. It doesn't make sense.

On top of which, the penny is going extinct because it costs two cents to make one.

What a crazy world. 

A tomato is still a tomato though. That's one thing we still have...
And Little Red-Haired Girls to keep us in perspective and remind us of what really matters.

Speaking of Latchkey

"Positive effects of being a latchkey child include independence and self-reliance at a young age." 

This woman went to Goose Bay, Labrador to work for the civil service in the early 50's. Women were outnumbered about 10 - 1. That's the greater part of the reason she went. She was in her 30's already and hadn't married.

Independent sort. All by herself she went.
I heard plenty of stories about Goose Bay and loved to listen to her recount all of those magical days of her life.

She met my father there and it wasn't long before she had three little girls and was living in America, alone, while he was off in a foreign country serving the United States Military. 

Far away from her own home and family in Canada, she would spend the rest of her life (kids never do grow up you know) raising those three little girls, mostly by herself.

I guess I was about 10 when my father left home for good. We thought of ourselves then as "Little Women".

Before he left though, our mother had managed to learn to drive, get a GED, American citizenship, and a job with the U S Civil Service. The only trouble was that her first assignment was at a base some 30, seemingly million, miles away from her little girls. Of course, at the same time he was stationed somewhere away from home as well.

It was all she could do to function. But she did. We did have a babysitter for a little while, Mrs. Smith and her dog Alvin; but it got to be that it was too hard for her to squeeze out the money, so we became "latchkey kids". Even a nickel was a hard thing to come up with in those days, no kidding.

"Deborah Belle, author of The After-School Lives of Children: Alone and With Others While Parents Work suggests that being left home alone may be a better alternative to staying with baby-sitters or older siblings.<sup>"

We didn't latch the door. Most people didn't in those days, it was just a safer time of the world (Cuban Missile Crisis aside). So, we didn't need a key, and there was never one hanging around anyone's neck.</sup> 

<sup>I do remember having a key around my neck; however it was my rebellion to being part of the herd mentality of which whom were, e-ve-ry-one, and I mean everyone, wearing a peace symbol. Not me though. I just wasn't gonna do what everyone else was so I bought myself a chain with a giant key on it. That'll teach 'em! Ain't gonna get me to cooperate with the masses, no way. 

It was the late 60's. Independence at a young age? Me thinks. 

Self-reliance, that too. 

Loneliness, boredom and fear. Depression. Low self-esteem. Peer pressure, drug and alcohol use. These are all listed as negative side effects of the same circumstance of being home alone. There were three of us and one or all of us were affected by one or all of these previously listed symptoms. We pulled through. Not unscathed, but alive. That's something.

Today, I didn't find the time to take any pictures myself. Today I was busy looking for nickels. I found a few and I think I can keep myself going again, at least for a little while. No cardboard box just yet for a home. And not for the lack of something that that woman from Goose Bay independence didn't do to make sure I could. Thank you Mama. Thank you for the strength you instilled in me. Thank you for all the things you paid forward. Thank you for being in my mind now, reminding me what to do.</sup> 

^{It wasn't anything for all of the three of us little girls 10, 11, and 12ish (and on up forever from there) to spend the day traipsing around the complete neighborhood looking for bottles to collect a deposit on. It wasn't anything for all of the three of us to have after school job(s) and/or babysitting every day of the week.}

<sup>I think it was because of being a Latchkey Kid that I don't fear what might be up for tomorrow. 

Who really knows what makes the whole of anyone. It's all things together. But, I do know that whenever I get through a hard time, I appreciate things more and the happiness I experience is enriched.  

It would be nice to still be the "bag of bones" I was called by my older and younger sisters. Yes, that is the fact, I'm a Malcolm in the middle and there is some truth to that in there.
Twist and Shout!</sup>