Money - my ather

Daddy worked from the time he was little. I could say I did too, but he was good at it. He was famous for how fast he could pick cotton. From about age 15 he became THE farmer of the family while siblings, older and younger, went to find their livelihoods elsewhere. Dad (Daddy's father) was stove up most of the time. I’ve novelized this story for those interested.

Daddy read Dad’s Socialist literature. He read everything he could get his hands on – novels and history mostly. He had thought he might be a lawyer. He worked all sorts of jobs along with his farming and was the iceman when he started going with Mama. The crash of ’29 got him interested in the merry-go-round of money, especially the concept of speculation and it’s inherent harm to economies and, especially, the concept of valuation based on productivity as opposed to perceived potential worth. He grubbed out iron tough mesquites, bought a few acres here and there. He scratched a little money together for his first farm and went in with his brother and his nephew and bought land that he cleared (their cash, his muscle). He got a little mineral rights out of the deal. He built a few houses around and then when the crops were in the family went to Corpus Christi and Galveston to build Navy bases. He kept farming and then added side jobs like working tower on oil drilling rigs (that means climbing 50-75 feet up the derrick and catching swinging, slamming pipes to attach to the drill string). He built a few more houses. And raised fantastic crops, including vegetables he and Mama canned and later froze. He bought a few cows and ran them on various fields. He leased land. He made the $10000 crop. His and Mama’s seven kids were all phenomenally healthy. Daddy and some partners and with the help of Mr. Truman started a Farmer’s Coop. The local ginner cursed and went to honest labor.

Then the drought and then cancer.

Without the dole of free cheese, flour, corn meal, canned pork, butter (real), dry beans, dry milk and a few other staples (produced as surplus up north somewhere) to go with the pitiful dried up garden crops AND without the loan shark (Texas had a 10% max interest by law then – they charged more) he would have had to sell his land, which was debt-free, and quit. The banks wouldn’t loan money during a drought. Hospitals had to be paid – no insurance and no Medicaid.

He struggled back to solvency. We boys got jobs and payed our own ways to college. The girls found husbands early in life.

Then the gas wells came in. In his late years, Daddy and Mama went to New York and Alaska and Mama went to see the twins in Hawaii during Viet Nam. The bank loved him. When he died (at 86), there was the sum of two hundred thousand dollars and a small part of the farm left for Mama to live out the rest of her life (‘til almost 92).

I learned a few lessons: building houses seems to be a good bet for side money. The oil field brings in steady cash, sometimes. Farming might kill you (the cancer was caused by cotton poison – arsenic). Capital is so dear that you should never expect any to come without thick wires attached. Sometimes even bad money can get you out of a jam.