Category: My Big Family Stories

Here’s A Dime, Have Fun!

Roughly two thirds of parents give their children an allowance, according to a survey by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants of more than 1,000 parents.

You’re not going to believe the average amount – $30 a week. A lot of parents pay their children for doing chores, helping out around the house.  Most folks probably disagree with me but I’ve never thought that was a good idea — children ought to do chores because they’re members of the family.

But that’s not what this post is about.

* * *

The last line...
Here’s  your spending money, a quarter for you and a dime for your sister.  Have a good time!

Brother Dave was going through some of his papers and discovered an early record of his daughters’ allowances: Paige got 50 cents and Jenni, who is younger, got 20 cents – a week.

That’s not all. Of those amounts, they were required to tithe 10 percent and save 40 percent. That left Paige with a quarter a week and Jenni with a dime a week to spend any way their hearts desired “except for candy or gum.”

How long ago was that, you asked?

Dave doesn’t remember, probably 40 years ago, maybe a little more, but what difference does it make? What if it was 80 years ago? Ten cents a week spending money?

The money they saved could also be spent but “only after 3 months of planning” and the item they bought had to be paid for in full at the time of purchase. Jenni could have saved for three months, planning every day about what to buy, and still only had 24 cents in her piggy bank when the big day arrived.

Jenni
Jenni

“Oh, it’s way worse than that. :),” Jenni told me.  “In fact, I use that as a story in my classes now. My memory of this must have been later because my memory is that there was a total amount that changed weekly and I had to figure out percentages for each. Like tithe 10% of $3.27 and savings 15% of $3.27….. totally traumatizing and I still can’t do math today.”

“We had to report to the kitchen table on Saturday at night after dinner for this exercise. I arrived promptly with my ceramic orange (savings bank) and ceramic banana (spending bank) and my box of offering envelopes.”

Paige
Paige

“Also there were rules around the spending of savings. I had to write out a description of my planned purchase along with the price and then give the note to dad and wait… can’t remember how long. Probably 1 month but it felt like 3 months.  If I still wanted it after the waiting period then I was free to purchase. I remember Paige wanted to buy sandals once and summer ended before the waiting period … funny now, not so much then.”

“I AM a great saver now… I owe it all to dad and these crazy rules of his.”

Coming Monday: My Free Pass

Never Again!

In the late 1970’s or early ’80’s, not long after Charles T. Stith Jr. – Chuck– married Cheryl K. Paul, he was wiring the lights in his garage.

Chuck Stith
Chuck Stith, telling stories at Snowbird.

“I climbed up on the table, on a beer keg,” Chuck said. “I was in the dark and it arced a little bit and when I moved the table leg broke.”

Chuck fell.

“I hollered, ‘Oh,ooo, awwww, I broke my arm!’ I said, ‘Go call Pop!’”

He said he told his bride the bone was sticking through so Cheryl took off to call Pop — his Dad and one of my older brothers.

“I get up laughing,” Chuck said. His arm wasn’t broken. In fact, he wasn’t hurt at all.

He was laughing, but Cheryl wasn’t. He said she told him, “Never again!”

* * *

Some years later Chuck was building a cabinet and Cheryl went with him to buy the wood.

“She saw that I gave sixty-some dollars for a sheet of plywood.”

Next morning, Chuck went to work on the cabinet. He was cutting some small pieces when the saw knocked a big chunk out of one of his fingers. Chuck put the damaged hand behind his back so blood wouldn’t drip everywhere and finished the cut. Then he wrapped his hand in a blue rag and went to find his wife.

Cheryl Stith
Cheryl Stith

“She’s working in the flower bed. And I walk around the house and I say, ‘Cheryl, I’m gonna go up here and get some stitches.’ By then the rag was soaked and blood was dripping.

He said she jumped up and asked him, “Did you ruin that plywood?”

* * *

Later on, Chuck got hurt again.

“I was ripping a piece of wood on a table saw and when it kicked back and hit me in the stomach, knocked a big knot on my stomach. I was holding it in, trying to hold it in, and I stumbled out of the garage.”

He said Cheryl was on the back porch and she saw him and saw the knot.

“I tripped over the tongue of the trailer, and I fell. I didn’t have a shirt on and when I stood up you could see the knot. And I was holding it in and I said, ‘No problem, no problem at all.’”
“She went on in the house, never said nothing else about it.”

* * *

That’s not all.

“I was under my truck, working on my truck, changing out a U-joint and I guess the Good Lord was with me that day.”

Chuck told me he had backed his truck up on a little rise and chocked it – everything was in good shape, he said. You know by now how safety conscious he is.

“It wouldn’t come loose when I got the bolts out. So I go in the garage and get a little pry bar. And when I laid back down under the truck, instead on laying under it sideways I laid under it long ways. I was just gonna reach under there and pop the drive shaft out.”

He popped it out and when he did his truck began rolling, across his right shoulder and arm. The drive shaft caught on his belt, pulled his pants, and wedged him under the truck.

Chuck screamed so loud the neighbors heard him, screamed for his wife to come out there and jack up truck, or back it up, or something.

“She said she didn’t hear me but I know she looked out the door,” Chuck said.

He finally got his belt loose, and freed himself. He could move the arm that got run over so he figured it wasn’t broken.

“I go in the house, I had a pink tire mark on this shoulder and arm. It was already turning blue and red.”

“I just told her, ‘I got this, no problem.’”

“She says, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’”

“I said, ‘Well, the truck just ran over me.’”

“And she said, ‘Well, evidently, it didn’t hurt you any.’”

* * *

Earlier this year Chuck all but severed the little finger on his right hand with a skill saw.

“She was at the grocery store, and a, I called her to tell her that I’m going on up to the hospital, get a few stitches.”

“And she said, ‘Don’t go up to the hospital, go up to the doc-in-a-box, they’re cheaper. And quicker.’”

“And I said, ‘Ah, I believe it’s going to be a little more than a few stitches.’ And she said, ‘Well, do I need to come up there?’”

“And I said, ‘Yea, better come on up there where I’ll have a ride home.’”

“And she, ‘Well, let me put my groceries up.’”

Cheryl and Chuck
Cheryl and Chuck

By the time Cheryl got to the hospital where they live, in Gadsden, AL, doctors were preparing to have Chuck transported to Birmingham, to try to save his finger.

Postscript: Surgeons in Birmingham put a bone from a cadaver in Chuck’s finger and, so far, so good.

Chuck and Cheryl are still married, 40 years now. And, best I know, he hasn’t yelled “Wolf!” in quite some time.

Coming Monday: Pat The Rat