Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Birthday Riches

When my brother and I were young, one of the highlights of the year was our respective birthdays. The party, the cake, the presents – but, what we looked forward to at 5 and 6 years old was the money.

Our grandparents gave us a dollar for every year we turned older. $7 for turning 7 years old, $6 for turning 6. GRAND!

We used to have discussions before, during and after our birthdays, counting our riches – and speculating on turning 100, NO – wait, 150. This was a sure fire way to make money and get rich. All we had to do was just keep having birthdays, and, if the trend of getting a dollar extra every year continued there was no end to the amount of money we’d be bringing in on a yearly basis.

To my six-year-old self, $150 was more than enough to live on for, well who knew how long $150 would last. Kbars were 10c at the local dairy, sherbet was 25c, and comics were 75c. So, that was – hmm, carry the 1 – well, it was a lot. A lot more money than I usually had. I knew counting to 150 took a long time, so it surely was a lot of money. Every year, just more and more money pouring in.

My grandfather passed away in the early 1990’s.

The one flaw in the plan that the child in me failed to see was that things never stay the same. People aren’t always with you, that what you have today isn’t necessarily what you’ll have tomorrow. Well, the other flaw was I wouldn’t always be living at home not paying rent and being fed for free. But I’m pretty sure that’s a secondary flaw.

Still, a dollar for EVERY year – just think about turning 500…

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hey, my grandad passed away in the early 1990's too! what an amazing coincidence!!!!