meemoon wrote:Roscoe, your initial comment "only in America" gains more cogency with every comment I read here. No brag, just shared memories. My old man believed we should work for our "allowance" too. But he was fair and paid us well (for a kid). My first "job" was cleaning bricks for a penny a piece, He would take us to work with him during the summer and we would clean up, pick up, and f-up, but we got paid. I was probably the only little kid who could flag down a huge crane and hitch a ride across a jobsite. When I was 10 and my bro was 11, he set us up a concession stand on the site and we did the whole thing. We bought the Cokes (98 cents a case), nabs, and ice. We kept the books and worked it 8 hours a day, every day. We LOVED that. Almost all his employees were black and they were our best friends. Since we worked too, we could cuss, gamble, and sneak a swaller of shine every now and then. I lied about my age and got my first "real" job when I was 15. My mom drove me to and from work. We were told ALL work was good and honorable, and it is. Later in life, I paid our kids to do chores. Cheap labor but they always had more money than their friends. It was funny. Their friends thought we were rich when we were FAR from that. Roscoe, those new home owners may be living by the skin of their teeth and a few credit cards. The new 40 year mortgages and 6 year car loans help too. I live in a 68 X 14 trailer, but I bought it new and with cash. I own this land too. I went to college and have an eng. degree, but I guarandamntee you, I can change the oil on any car or truck because I've done it. I can take a flat tire, lay it on the ground underneathe the car, break the bead loose with a bumper jack, stuff a tube in, and blow it up with a bicycle pump. I have about 20 repairs to make on this old Dodge truck I just bought, but I will do every one of them, and enjoy doing them while I cuss the thing. I admire people who can grow things, build things, and fix things. That was what I was taught.