The smallest paycheck

[electra225]

I just got my pay statement from the store. I got a whole $1.02. Yep, some payroll associate in Bentonville actually took the time to pay me $1.02 for driving to the store to check my schedule.

When I was working at the Cities Service gas station in 1966, I worked eight hours on Saturday, then four hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons. My clear paycheck was $21.21 per week. I still have my last paycheck from that job, uncashed. My budget was $5 for savings (God help me if I forgot "savings") $5 a week for Super Shell gasoline. I had to make sure the tank was so empty the gas gauge disappeared into the instrument panel, then I had to shake the rear of the car side to side to get $5 worth of Super Shell into my Buick. $5 for car expense. The rest was for dates, spending money, that kind of thing. I thought I was rich. Now, $25 worth of the cheapest gas I can find will barely wet the bottom of the tank. I spend $10 a day for lunch at work.

Goodyear Double Eagle tires, 800-15's cost $42 a pair. Grandpa wouldn't let me buy only one tire. It cost $18 for a Delco battery for my Buick including grandpa's discount. We sold oil changes at the station for $7.50 including oil, filter and lube. Then we'd vacuum out the front floorboards of your car and wash all the windows. I just paid $130 to have the oil changed in the Mini. They did wash my car, though. And the little gal in the miniskirt brought it to me.....

My grandmother, bless her heart, was tight as the bark on a hickory stump. She confiscated my paycheck, then doled out the proceeds in white envelopes according to my needs, as she saw them. She kept the savings and car money portions. When I needed something for the car, grandpa always paid for it, then said "we'll settle up later". When I ask him about it, he was usually too busy to "fool with that right now". I was almost 30 before grandma relinquished control over my savings money. Probably one of the best things she ever did for me. Grandpa always paid for the repairs on my car, did most of them himself, so he could rest assured they were done in a timely manner and done correctly so I'd be safe.

[TC Chris]

Amazing how much we learn from wise elders. And how we don't realize it until we are the elders.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Not a day goes by when I don't think of something they told me, something they showed me, something they trusted me to do way above my abilities.

Grandpa used to say "If I tell you that you can do it, get to it!".......

I wish I had the literary skills necessary to write a book about grandpa and Uncle Fort. The stuff they got into and all they showed me would take me the rest of my life to tell about. Grandpa's friends were all unique personalities in their own right.

[William]

If you really want to write that book, Greg, all you need to do is start writing, the rest will happen if a publisher wants to run with it.

Bill

[TC Chris]

Publishing is easier than ever. You can self-publish. We found a typescript of my Alabama grandfather's second book. I engaged somebody who types faster than I do (anybody with 3 fingers) to transfer the text to digital, then my brother and I edited it for spelling and typos and published it. It was not very expensive.

https://www.amazon.com/Pale-Horse-Heads ... 150538804X

We ordered copies for all the family members and a few extras just in case, and distributed a few to the college his kids went to in B'ham. And now it's available, on paper, on demand. The royalty checks have not been rolling in, but it's available.

Grandaddy was a character but he put 6 kids through college during the Depression and still managed to write two books. The first one was published by a real publishing house in 1943.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

Most societies over the world venerate their elders far more than Americans tend to. We worship youth here often at the cost of not listening to the wisdom of the those more experienced than we are. There is much to be learned from them if we only will pay attention.

$130 for an oil change seems a bit salty! I think I paid $45? for our last one, using 5 qts Valvoline semi-synthetic and a Wix filter (Wix, Napa Gold [aka Wix] and Hastings are the only filters I'll accept). I change every 3k on all vehicles. It pays off, our '05 xTerra has 210k miles and uses Zero oil between changes. Same for the '87 SAAB with 230k.

I recently changed garages as the former guy was overcharging. He was one of my wife's patients and an ASE mechanic but the new guy is just as good and not as expensive $110+/hr is nuts. I do next to nothing on the cars anymore and am figuring how to get most of my tools to the sons and daughter. I'm thinking of sending a "Pod" to Denver.

[electra225]

It ain't "salty" for a Mini Cooper. Built by BMW, need I say more? I love the car, period. One of its downfalls is getting it serviced. An absolute horror show. The little gal in the leather miniskirt is pleasant, but the rest of the procedure tries my patience. In fairness, if we had a newer Tahoe, the dealer gets $110 for their oil change service and their "120-point" inspection. There ain't 120 things on a newer Tahoe that needs inspected. This is the wild west. Service people out here charge first, work later, if you can get them to work at all........

Grandpa's shop had a "NO GIRLS" sign on the door, and Rita Hayworth calendars glommed all over the wall above his valve grinder. There was a pot-belly stove used for heat. Grandpa would collect oil filters in a big drum, then burn them in the stove. Lots of pleasant hours were spent in that old dirt-floor garage, working on cars and listening to the stories. There were old car parts strewn about. Safety considerations didn't exist back then. It's a wonder he didn't get blown up in that shop. He washed parts in gasoline, right next to that stove. A lot of what I am and a lot of what I was taught about being a decent human being was learned in that old garage.

[TC Chris]

I moved to 10K oil change intervals when I started using Mobil 1 and stopped driving to work. The vehicles get almost exclusively long-distance, constant speed use. At 200K, the Ranger still goes 8K before it's a quart down, same as always. The Mustang, with 100K on the engine, goes 6K as it always has. I'll bet most of that was lost to some small leaks. The oil changes are one thing I can still do for myself.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Our HOA gets crabby if the snitches see you working on your car in the driveway or on the street. There is no room in the garage, so I have to take the cars in to a professional repair shop to have anything done.

[TC Chris]

I have never lived in a place with an HOA. I can't imagine having my activities scrutinized by some small-minded busybody. My neighbor are mostly people who do things and have projects. Let's hear it for real cities.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Our HOA is more benefit than bother. Almost all of the new home communities in the last ten years or so have HOA's, many more aggressive than ours. We have a citizen's committee that works with the HOA. Some HOA's are overly aggressive and not good to do business with. We are fortunate.

[TC Chris]

The whole notion of mandated materials, styles, and colors offends me. It's probably because for all my life I've lived in older neighborhoods with houses built at different times, in different styles, to different tastes. There was some uniformity imposed by zoning eventually--setback lines and such--and economics dictated some limits. You mostly did not find vast mansions built among economy dwellings. Generally it encourages some consideration for neighbors. Most people don't paint their houses bright purple even if they might be so inclined. Those who disregard the neighbors aren't well received. But the freedom to be a bit different is a good thing. I do like zoning rules (residences here, businesses there) because otherwise a greedy "developer" will ruin anything for a fast profit. But keep the rules general.

Chris Campbell

[19&41]

I miss the neighborhoods of beautiful old houses. One can drive for miles and miles here and only rarely see older homes anywhere else besides older rural communities or maybe a single older home that got swallowed up in the urban sprawl and even those usually are no older than the 1930's. There are a few near where I work that are being gentrified.

[electra225]

My grandmother's people all came from Stone County, GA. I haven't been there since I was a little kid, maybe 1956 or so. Last time I was there, there still was standing many of those two-story homes with the big porch on the front with large coulmns holding up the porch roof. The houses sat back long lanes from the road. They had like 25-acre yards they had to mow.

[19&41]

Both my mother's and father's lineage came from around Yadkinville North Carolina. Each family migrated north, my father's settling in Indiana in the 1860's and my mother's a little bit north further north in the 1880's. It's funny how things worked out that way.