I know things change. I have been watching it for over seventy years. Some changes bug an old person. One is the attitude toward paying bills.
I was raised to pay what I owe when (or before) it is due. There was a time (that disappeared sometime in the last 30 years) that the company you had credit with VALUED YOU as a customer, if you paid on time. You were a ‘trusted customer’. If you needed more credit, they looked back at your record and said, “Hey that Jack has never been late and usually pays before we bill him. SURE give him whatever he needs he is good for it.
In our family we have gone short of something’s, to make sure the debts were paid on time. BUT our one rule was we never buy what we cannot afford. I think of this at Christmas time. Christmas gifts are wonderful; it is the spirit of Christmas. One thing I can say, this family has NEVER borrowed to buy gifts. We have given less, we have given nothing but cards and good wishes, but we have never gone in debt for Christmas. Somehow it just was not the right thing to do. That was OUR ideas.
We have had friends who were bemoaning the December gifts in January, when the bills came due. Families today must give ‘bigger’ than last year no matter how much the cost. For some reason parents cannot sit the children down and say, “We just cannot do much this year.” In later years the children will appreciate the honesty, I would hope.
My original premise to this entry was borrower lender relationships. There was a time, when there was a Company Store, where purchases were made against one’s paycheck. People who did not do some calculations would buy more than they had coming. Tennessee Ernie had a hit song called ‘Sixteen Tons’. A song about a coal mining man who ‘owed his soul to the Company store’.
I never lost the vision of a man at the other end receiving my payment and saying, “I knew Jack’s would be one of the first.” Silly, that. Over the years I became just a number and did not know it. Now the companies really don’t care if you are late or not, they make more money. The interest does not stop, it just keeps ticking on. And they tempt you with the “MINIMUM PAYMENT” entry. They would much rather you pay the min payment. Let me say this and I will quit after not having said what I wanted to. NEVER SEND THE MINIMUM. Always send just a little more, even a dollar, if you cannot pay it all. The minimum will have you owing your soul to the ‘Company Store’.
Thanks for reading this drivel.
Nite Shipslog
PS:
Things you don’t hear anymore (some of you never heard them).
Quit slamming the screen door when you go out!
Wash your feet before you go to bed, you've been playing outside all day barefooted.
Why can't you remember to roll up your britches legs? Getting them caught in the bicycle chain so many times is tearing them up.

PS@ I quit trying to add pics after the third time.....