For a Rainy Day!

I am pleasantly surprised that many of the Bloggers express many of my feelings, beliefs and morals. I know we are not a like, and if all our thoughts were expressed some of us would be as different as night and day. Even so, if should not make us enemies, or cause us to have a falling out. There are many folk who disagree with me and we are still friends. I have mentioned basic disagreements between my recently departed friend, Sonny and myself, but it NEVER caused a crack in our friendship. We even joked about our differences as we walked life’s path, BUT, we came to a fork in the road, he turned, I could not go with him. I miss him.

I got off the subject. Everyone’s friends, Paula and Dar have mentioned something that I am a big fan of, bringing up some of my basic feelings.
Dar on finances/debts: “Do the Math!”

Paula: “Save for a rainy day!”

Mel , (Of: Honey I’m Home, fame) has this at the top of her Blog: “BE kinder than necessary….. Because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

Some of the beliefs we have stemmed from parents/grand parents who went through the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930’s. When there were People who would walk miles or travel hundreds of miles because they heard of jobs or work. They never again wanted to be caught with ‘nothing’.

I am always impressed by some folk’s determination to live in spite of dire circumstances. MY parents traveled from Georgia to Hollywood, Florida looking for work (to get there they stuffed straw, rags and debris in the blown out tires to keep moving, determined to find work). Later they moved to The Gastonia area of NC, to find jobs in the textile industry.

Sherry’s parents left the rural farming country of Eastern NC, coming to the Gastonia area for the same reason. We have a picture of mill workers in Belmont, and Sherry’s dad, Wiley Harris is there at 12 years old.

Working at 12 was not considered wrong. The kids on farms had worked from the early age of three and four, starting with feeding chickens and gathering eggs. Susie, Sherry’s mom, worked as a child. I never heard one complaint from her; she left us early due to a heart attack, at 61. Most of their peers worked and lived in their mill houses until they died. Nothing wrong with that, but Susie wanted a little more.

She even had the fore sight to take out a small policy on one of her 7 children, that she knew would need something to help bury him, and her insight was spot on, years after her death that paid up policy was used at his death. Funny how mothers just know ‘stuff, ain’t it’?

In her 61 years, Susie established a legacy for her family. She managed those mill workers salaries (starting at 20 cents an hour) so that by the age of 55, she and Wiley had raised 7 kids and owned two small houses. Sherry talks of her mom, ‘She always had a little money left when the next payday rolled around. And quoting her dad: Put something back for a rainy day.’

Had we and our nation as a whole, practiced those values, we would not be in the position we are today.

Thanks for reading this stuff,
Nite Shipslog
PS:
Everyone tries to do the best they can, not everyone’s circumstances are the same.

Also not everyone has the fore sight of those wonderful hardy folk up near the Canadian border, to cut next year’s firewood in the spring. Do y’all remember Dar when took us along as they cut split and stacked their fire wood for the next year or so? Consider the Ant!