money

Growing up in a small town, your opportunities are limited and you learn that it's going to be hard to accomplish something without a struggle of some sort, especially when it involves trying to make some cash, but you know that with a little help, and a little creative thinking you can do it. Being that i was just a kid, it was definitely hard for me to get my hands on some cash. There never was any good jobs available, but that didn't mean that you should go and cry about it, the best thing to do was to use what you learned growing up.
I remember when i was in my pre teens, in order to get money to go to the show or buy a toy or whatever it was i wanted, i would go out and find soda bottles and sell them, sometimes this meant getting one of my cousins and getting on my bike and me pedaling and him on the handlebars, we would ride down the alleys and any bottles we found were ours, don't know if the people put the bottles out there because they didn't want them, but that was our reasoning for picking them up and every once in awhile we would see a garage door open with some bottles by the door and the bottles would somehow jump out the door and we would pick them up. ( please forgive me lord ) hey on a good day, at a penny a bottle, we might make fifty cents, thats twenty five cents each. WHOOPEE we would spend two to three hours doing this, then go and spend our twenty five cents. I did have a steady job though, once a year my neighbor would get a load of fire wood and have it dumped in his garage and i would go stack it for him, he would pay me three dollars. Also every year right before the fair, this lady would give me a job mowing her lawn for another two bucks, i mowed her lawn once a year for Christ sake. For two weeks before the fair i earned all the money i could so i could have money to spend during the fair. My twenty-five cent allowance didn't go very far during the fair. ( i would get an allowance during the summer months only ) When the fair was over we would stay there until everyone went home on sunday night. Then we would go around and find someone who needed help tearing the rides down, one of the carnies would always hire us, of course there was no child labor laws back then. We would stay and work all night, the problem was, after we got done working, it would be about five or six o clock in the morning and we would be hungry as hell. they always kept a food stand there, it was usually the last thing to get torn down, so we would go and spend part of our money at the food stand, because we would be starving. some of the guys would spend most of their money on food. Tearing down the rides was kinda fun but it was hard work. The thing is, sometimes you could find money or other things that people lost, you just had to be looking all the time.
i would get an allowance during the prune picking season, which would amount to the grand total of twenty five cents, although Mom would up this periodically to fifty cents. One time at the end of the prune picking season, my Mom gave my brother and my cousin (who was living with us at the time ) their whole last check, they had been working loading trucks i believe, and told them to buy their school clothes and they could use the rest of the money how ever they wanted. I'm there thinking, alright, nice big raise in my allowance, yeah right, i get fifty cents, talk about a big disappointment, here i'm walking with my bro and cuz and they are talking about going shopping and all the things that they are going to buy and that fifty cents of mine is looking smaller and smaller. I did plead my case with Mom but she wouldn't budge, her reasoning was that i was too young, maybe i was but that didn't make it any better for me. She could have at least given me a dollar. I did get my day though when i was sixteen or seventeen. I worked swamping, that's loading prune boxes and driving truck all summer. very hard work for someone who only weighed about a hundred and twenty pounds soak and wet. At the end of the season, i asked Mom, if i could keep my last check to buy a car and before i could even finish saying what i was going to say, she said, no. now my Mom hardly ever goes back on what she says, but i didn't give up either, finally she relented and said, yes. I was so happy. I took that check and the money i had saved during the summer. I was allowed to keep ten- fifteen dollars out of my check every week, i would spend half on clothes and the other half i saved, i think i had something like sixty dollars saved. My brother Mundo co signed for me to get the car "although i know he was having a lot of second thoughts" I bought a 1953 ford at a car lot in Yuba City, on payments of twenty-five dollars a month. Once the prune picking season was over, i didn't have a job, but i did have a car payment. what to do, what to do. well i graduated from picking up bottles to picking up scrap iron and selling it, hey i had a car, i could do this. I would work and when the work stopped, i would sell whatever i could get my hands on, and by working on my car, i learned how to fix them sorta, so i used to fix them for a small fee. Took me awhile but i finally paid my car off, much to the relief of my brother Mundo. Mom and Dad ended up moving to Woodland, so i ended up taking over Dads part of the gardening business in Colusa that Mundo and Dad shared. I was still a teenager and part owner of a business. The problem was i did the job and i was very good at it, but i hated gardening. I did this for a couple years and then i moved to Woodland and went back to work out in the fields with Pop.

I just want to say that i had no problem giving my Mom most of my check, once she explained what was really going on. We usually had cousins or friends living with us and yes they worked too, but it took a lot of money to feed and cloth our big family. Everyone chipped in. Actually we had it pretty good during the summer months, because everybody worked.
When i went to work out in the fields, i would work ten hours a day, six days a week and make about fifty bucks a week. I don't believe there was a minimum wage back then, if there was, they didn't honor it. that was some very hard work. You gotta remember that everything was very cheap back then, you could get a dozen eggs and a gallon of milk for about a dollar and a gallon of gas was about thirty cents. Six pack of beer was a dollar. candy bar was five cents. (this year 2010, i bought a candy bar the other day and it was $1.79 ) Most families back then would buy what they needed during the summer because that's when the work was available, so what you bought in the summer had to last you all winter. Winter was always the hardest time to try and find work of course, but Mom and Dad always found a way to get by and i learned from them. Right now today we are in a recession, but you know what, I know, some way, some how, my wife and i will make it through these hard times and one day we'll look back and say, hey you remember that recession we were in and what we had to do to get by, member you member. I'm sure we'll have a good chuckle about it. I guess all the things i learned when i was growing up, really taught me how to get by when the work was scarce. The other thing is, if you have faith, the good Lord will help you find a way. I believe in God with all my heart and i know he's watching out for me. If he wasn't, there's no way i would be here today after all the crazy stuff i did as a kid and adult, at the same time, i'm sure i gave him a laugh or two.

Cindy

I remember when my sister Cindy was born, we were living out at Chibics ranch. I couldn't have been more then five years old, but i remember them driving up and everyone making a fuss, including me. Of course as she got older she became Dads favorite and you couldn't tell her anything or she would go and tell Dad. I know i got my fair share of scoldings. Dad used to pay her a dime to go to school, can you believe that. If i asked for a dime to go to school i would just get ignored or laughed at. One thing about our family was that we all had our time being Mom and Dads favorite. We had a little sister named Renee,who was born after Cindy and she became all our favorite, unfortunately she only lived to be three years old, when she passed, it left a great big void in all our lives, she was very, very special to all of us. Cindy didn't mind being Dads favorite after Renee.
I remember this one time when i was about ten, i was shooting my b b gun at this basketball backstop in our back yard. Cindy was under it and apparently one of the bbs hit the metal rim on the back stop and went straight down and hit her on the head, she started screaming and crying and saying that i shot her in the head and i'm trying to get her to be quiet and she starts crying louder and louder and i'm getting frantic because i know my Dad is going to take the bb gun away from me. I'm offering her money ( i probably had about five or six cents on me ) but she wouldn't take it. She was adamant about telling on me, because she said that i intentionally shot her in the head. When she thought she was right, you could forget about changing her mind, she wouldn't budge. I think she was born with a personality of half Grandma and half Mom. That makes for a very strong personality. ( and hardheadedness ) No disrespect meant Mom and Grandma.
Cindy always had to have the last word, no matter what, if she was leaving the room and you were arguing with her, she would make sure she got in the last word, or she just wouldn't leave. I would try to get in the last word, but in the end i would give in, it would get darn right frustrating arguing with her. I wonder if she's still like that. I spent a lot of time at Grandma's house, so i know how she was and Cindy really reminds me of her in a lot of her mannerisms. Grandma loved to dance, she was strong willed, she had a great sense of humor and she loved her family. Although Grandma never played the accordion, I have no doubt in my mind, given the opportunity, she would have tried. About the only thing she didn't get from my Grandma was that deadly accurate throwing arm. My Grandma could take a prune and knock a fly off a horses ass from fifty feet. She was deadly accurate, ask my cousin Michael.
Cindy was probably about twelve when i left home. She was always pretty independent, so I never had to beat anyone up for her when she was young, well maybe just once. What she lacked in strength, she made up with her smarts. She could take care of herself.

My Sis loves to dance, just like our Grandma did, when there's a party she'll dance from one end of the room to the other, she just never stops. When i was told someone had bought her an accordion, there was no doubt in my mind that one day she'd be dancing and playing it at her parties. Joe's so lucky to be able to enjoy all that raw talent, I'm sure she plays, sings and dances for him all the time. Hah.